Ronald C. Modra/Getty ImagesLeBron James made it to the NBA Finals with lots of practice, hard work and ... sleep?Get perfect sleep
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Waking up tired and nodding off during even those engaging staff meetings are sure signs you're not getting the sleep you need for top performance. Here are a few surprising ways to get the shut-eye you need to work and play your best:
Try an after-dark sweat session. No, we don't mean that. We mean hit the gym in the evening. While it's hard to argue with the reliability of exercising before the day starts, if dragging yourself out of bed early is leaving you groggy, a night gym session is worthy of a whirl. Contrary to popular belief, there's no research to show that working out in the evening will keep you awake. Rather, a 2010 study found that subjects who did a hard 35-minute bike ride just 20 minutes before bedtime felt more tired when their heads hit the pillow. They fell asleep faster and woke up more refreshed than non-exercisers.
Fade to black(out). While you can't make the day (or night) longer, simple steps that shut out stimulants and distractions can improve the quality of the time you do have for sleep. "Blackout curtains are a great investment," Mah said. If street noise or early morning garbage collection wakes you up, pop in ear plugs as well.
Find your sweet spot. How do you know if you need 7.5 or 9 hours? Put your sleep to the test. If possible, start on the Friday of a three-day weekend, when you don't need to set the alarm for several days. If not, go to bed at a time that allows you to get at least eight to nine hours of sleep before you have to get up and get going. Set the alarm as late as possible. Then go to sleep. The first few nights, you might sleep longer as you snooze off your sleep debt. You'll know you're hitting the right number when you start waking up after a consistent number of hours (say, 7.5) without your alarm.
Nap like a cat. Napping is a scientifically proven way to recharge. But napping too long can leave you even groggier, something sleep scientists call sleep inertia. Ten to 30 minutes is an ideal refresher that won't impede nighttime sleep.
Fight jet lag with a workout. Heading across time zones for a big game or race? Exercising at the right time (and ideally, in bright sunlight) can speed your time zone shift, said Shawn Youngstedt, Ph.D., associate professor of the Division of Applied Physiology & Health Aspects at the University of South Carolina. If you're heading east to west, go for an evening session. West to east? Opt for the morning.
LeBron James sleeps half his life away. So does Michelle Wie. And look where it's gotten them: both are powerhouses. On and off the field, Forbes ranked James as the second most influential athlete last year (behind Lance Armstrong), and in '06, Time magazine named Wie as one of the 100 people who shape our world. Those hours in dreamland are clearly well spent, and just might be their, and many other top athletes' (who routinely get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep a night) secret to success. Studies show a solid night of shuteye can make you faster and stronger, while skimping on sleep makes you slower, wimpier, and more likely to end up benched with an injury. We talked to some of the leading sleep experts for the stats on how a healthy dose of pillow time can keep your eyes wide and locked on the prize.
Build muscle overnight. No matter how hard you work out, that 5 a.m. alarm may be stunting your strength. Why? Because your body pumps out 80 percent of your human growth hormone (HGH) during deep sleep. HGH is a naturally occurring hormone that increases muscle mass and strengthens bones. It's such a potent performance enhancer that synthetic versions had to be banned by the International Olympic Committee, and are hunted by the anti-doping police. This muscle-building elixir is released during the deepest levels of sleep -- specifically, the ones you nix when you stay up too late, get up too early, or do both, said sleep researcher Peter Walters, Ph.D., a professor at Wheaton College. That's bad news for 40 percent of adults who average less than seven hours a sleep a night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Maximize those gym sessions with an earlier bedtime, a later wake-up call, or both.
Kick start your sprint speed in your sleep. Whether you're sprinting down the soccer field, racing a 10K, or doing the butterfly across the pool, well-rested legs will carry you further faster. In a series of studies done with NCAA athletes, Stanford University sleep researcher Cheri Mah found that sleep extension -- sleeping a couple hours longer than normal in order to pay back the "sleep debt" you accrue by sleeping too little most nights -- yielded faster times on sprint drills, from swimming to tennis to basketball. In fact, well-slept female athletes enjoyed an eight percent increase in sprint speed. On the flip side, sleep deprivation slows you down. British researchers found that runners ran up to nine percent slower after they've stayed up all night. They even used more oxygen (meaning their bodies were working harder) than usual while they tried to run a steady pace. Hardly the recipe for a PR.
Sharpen your reflexes as you snooze. Sleep deprivation research shows that a lack of sleep deteriorates decision-making and reaction time, while a healthy dose of sleep improves it. Tennis players who slept 10 hours a night improved their hitting accuracy by 42 percent. Though the lion's share of reaction-time sleep studies are designed to examine more life-and-death matters, such as driving safety, in sports, even a split-second lapse in judgment could mean giving up a goal, getting passed at the line, or worst of all, landing wrong from a jump and blowing out your ACL.
Lock in new skills. Your body's muscles aren't the only ones getting stronger while you sleep. Your brain is hard at work, too, organizing and categorizing everything you've learned over the day. Harvard Medical School researchers found that people improved their speed and accuracy on finger tapping tests (where you learn and repeat finger tapping patterns during a timed test) by 20 percent and 39 percent, respectively, after a night's sleep, versus seeing zero improvement without sleep. These tests measure how quickly you can consolidate and cement new skills. So if you've been practicing ball handling drills, learning plays, or even perfecting your free throw, honing this process can help to cut down on mistakes and increase your speed of execution. Those final hours of a good night's sleep are crucial here: getting more stage two, non-REM sleep (which happens late in the night, or right when your alarm goes off if you stayed up too late) was also linked to improved morning-after performances.
