Sleep and its impact on athletes as well as knowledge workers… How to use Sleep Indicators to improve performance on teams on and off the court.

After more than two decades of working with professional sporting teams, high-net-worth individuals, and C-suite executives, sleep health consistently ranks among the few indicators with proven performance results.

There are others, but none with as much science to reinforce what we have experienced.

Back in 2011, Stanford University’s Cheri Mah’s Sleep study on basketball athletes prompted us at the Perth Wildcats and Perth Lynx to partner with UWA’s Dr Ian C Dunican, championed by our own head of Physical Performance, Josh Cavanagh, to conduct our own research into sleep and its effects on performance in 2015 (https://lnkd.in/gd3JhYyy).

Mah’s study proved that just two extra hours of sleep has significant improvements such as:

– Players ran faster 282-foot sprints (16.2 seconds versus 15.5 seconds) than they had at baseline;

– Free throw percentages increased by 9 per cent;

– 3-point field goal percentage increased by 9.2 per cent; and

– Fatigue levels decreased following sleep extension, and athletes reported improved practices and games.

At about the same time, research from the US Dept of Health reported that more 10% of adults were averaging less than five hours’ sleep despite motor performance due to sleep deprivation being equivalent to a blood alcohol content of .05 – 0.1% – making even driving dangerous. Whilst a single night of sleep deprivation has been shown to negatively affect attention, reaction time, cognition and memory.

University of Arizona’s Michael Grandner also reported similar results, suggesting an almost 20% drop in productivity at five to six hours of sleep and close to 30% drop at four hours or less.

Grandner and his colleague Jonathan Charest’s more recent research on sleep and athletic performance highlighted its critical role, especially with executive function; they found impacts on split-second decision-making in game-time environments.

The deleterious impact of sleep deprivation on work is no different for manual, technical, or knowledge workers.

Importantly, we have found that on and off the court, on average people have little to no time for themselves mentally, apart from being in the shower or phone-free environments such as church.

We are almost never alone, uninterrupted and fully engaged with ourselves or those around us.

This reduces the time available to truly reflect, process, analyse and learn whilst affecting end-of-day wind-down and sleep health.

Dunican’s research recommended that people “switch off all electronics at least an hour before bed to calm the mind, using mindfulness or meditation apps…”

We have since applied our sports-related learnings to the boardroom, advising CEOs’ managers and all employees to include feedback on their sleep health in team huddles, 101s, and general feedback daily, especially at commencement.

A sleep-health and wellness pulse check has proven to be a critical lead indicator of team performance.

NEXT ACTIONS

Answering with a quantitative number out of ten on: 

How well did you sleep last night? 

What is your general wellness? How do you feel? … and even, 

What’s the one thing keeping you up at night?

…can provide key insights on how ready and able every person on the team is to fulfil the day’s mission and, most importantly, provide an ongoing pattern of general well-being.

Where someone reports a lack of sleep, low levels of general wellness, or preoccupying concerns (work or otherwise), managers, coaches, and leaders can take necessary steps in the short and long term.