Why Sleep is Crucial for Golfers?

Why Sleep is Crucial for Golfers: How does rest improve performance and recovery

When it comes to developing in golf, the first thing that you may think about is improving your swing, strengthening your mental game, or putting in extra hours practicing.

But how often is the role of sleep considered in performance? For young athletes between the ages of 14-20 at the Jason Floyd Golf Academy sleep is not just a recovery tool, but a performance enhancer.

The problem with poor sleep for young athletes:

Athletes on average, tend to sleep much less than their non-athletic peers. Unfortunately, this can lead to major issues, including: 

• Increased Injury Risk: Studies have shown that athletes sleeping fewer than 7 hours a night have a 68% higher risk of injury. Similarly to this, students that sleep less than 8.1 hours on average are 1.7 times more likely to pick up an injury.

• Mental and Technical Strains: Being deprived of sleep can massively impair brain function, reducing decision-making abilities, memory, and elements of creativity. For golfers, this can mean poor shot selection and trouble remembering and mastering a certain technique or skill.

• Decline in Physical Wellbeing: Poor sleep can impact one’s strength, level of fatigue, rotational and explosive speed, and recovery levels. All of which are crucial for maintaining a high level of performance on the golf course.

• Emotional Challenges: Athletes who are sleep-deprived often report higher levels of anxiety and reduced coping abilities when faced with stress in a competitive setting.

Why is this relevant for you?

Golf is a sport that encompasses physical capabilities, mental fortitude and emotional stability. 

Well sleep can directly impact all these areas. Specifically, sleep enhances learning, strengthening our motor skills, ensuring that what we learn can be retained and allow us to improve on new techniques in practice. In addition to this, it can impact and boost creativity. This is through REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, a certain stage of deep sleep that promotes the recovery of our minds and if a suitable amount of REM occurs, it can help improve creative problem solving by over 40%.

In terms of physical recovery, sleep repairs muscles, produces growth hormones and restores glycogen stores (an important part of how your body creates energy), all of which is essential for peak performance. Finally consistent sleep positively influences our metabolism’s (a series of processes that control how your body makes and uses energy), motivation for physical activity and even our diet.

For more on how this is all key for a golfer at the Jason Floyd Golf Academy; Click here!

Common mistakes young athletes make? (And how to fix them)

It is common for young athletes in the current generation to develop habits that can sabotage their sleep quality, these can include:

• Using Devices Before Bed; Exposure to blue light (emitted by mobile phones and similar devices) between 10PM and 4AM, as this can suppress melatonin, which is a hormone essential for sleep performance.
• Irregular Sleep Patterns; Having an inconsistent bedtime, severely disrupts your circadian rhythm (the 24-hour internal clock that our brains have to regulate, being alert or tired by responding to changes in light in our environment) ultimately making It much harder to fall asleep and wake up feeling refreshed.
• Ignoring Sleep Debt; Many athletes can fall behind on sleep, it is common and is not damaging if done occasionally. But the issue arises when that sleep debt is consistently ignored and athletes fail to catch up on missed sleep, which can lead to major issues in performance and cognitive functions as well as impacting mood and leading to chronic fatigue.

However, all this is solvable and it is important not to get overwhelmed with the information and advice regarding sleep. Improving your sleep is always within your control.

Here are some simple and actionable steps you can take today:

1. Creating an evening routine; An evening routine can be a very simple thing, a focus on giving your brain the correct signals to activate your circadian rhythm and notify your body that it is time for rest. This will become much easier over time as your body adjusts to your routine and solidifies it in your circadian rhythm. Here is an example of a simple evening routine:

• 3 hours before bed: Wear blue-light glasses if using screens
• 2 hours before bed: Turn off all screens, dim bright lights, and relax with non-digital activities such as reading, journaling or listening to music etc.
• 1 hour before bed: Take a hot shower or do light stretching to signal your body it is time to wind down (warm water aids natural temperature regulation, improving sleep as a result)

2. Maintain a consistent sleep schedule, where you wake up and go to sleep at the same time every day, even on weekends. This allows your body to get into a routine and allows energy levels to be maintained equally throughout the day.
3. Optimise the duration of your sleep (8-10 hours of sleep) each night. This can heavily depend on the strain your body and mind has had that day and therefore your recovery needs. 
4. Taking advantage of tools like WHOOP to track your sleep accurately and identify the specific areas you can improve upon (WHOOP can also advise you on this). However, when using technology such as WHOOP it is important to note that you should always prioritise how you feel. (Click here to read more about WHOOP).
5. Finally if you miss sleep, take a short nap (no longer than 2 hours) to make up for any deficit you may have accumulated. 

Health recommendations for athletes:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) released a research paper which highlights sleep as a major factor in dictating athletic performance and mental health. Similarly the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) includes sleep as part of their best practices for student-athletes/young athletes.

From these pieces of research sufficient sleep is defined for young adults as at least 8-10 hours with proper circadian alignment and balanced levels of Deep sleep (SWS) and REM (45-50% of total time asleep) for muscle repair and skill development.

How can sleep improve your golf?

Prioritising sleep, is a massive step everyone can take to improve their day to day quality of life, enhancing strength, endurance and decision-making. Sleep also decreases the rate of injury as a result of better recovery and decreased fatigue leading to fewer injuries. This quality of recovery can massively influence your mental game, including creativity, focus and ability to manage stress.

The Jason Floyd Golf Academy understands that sleep is the root of athletic performance. It is the time when the body repairs and recalibrates from a session and your mental strength can improve. 

By taking control of your sleep and sleep habits you and inviting in your future, in both life and golf. Treat sleep as seriously as you do your swing, and your game will transform!

If you want to take your golf game to the next level, join the Jason Floyd Golf Academy. We provide elite level training, including fitness and recovery coaching! Learn more about our bespoke golf programmes here!