Sleep Article

[Tapeworm]

Interesting pieces on sleep by the Women's Oly Pursuit team.

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/03/sleep ... -olympian/

Not sure if water circulated mattress pads are needed for all, but the tips at the end are sound for improving sleep quality.

Hell, I'd be happy with just one night of unbroken sleep for 6 hours at the moment....

[TheKaiser]

Thanks for posting that Tapeworm! I'm always interested to see what ancillary enhancement techniques people are finding useful.

That article was an interesting read as I had not heard about these Oathlete guys before, nor their apparently instrumental role in the US women's Olympic team. Having said that, the writeup was a mile wide and an inch deep, and I am somewhat doubtful that they actually applied a lot of the potential technology and techniques they reference.

I can totally get behind the applicability of the sleep and circadian optimization and that stuff is pretty well established. I am curious what sleep monitors they utilize, especially now that Zeo has gone under (although back in 2012 they were still around) and while they reference the availability of many inexpensive sleep monitoring options, they don't mention that a lot of them are crap. The mattress pad info was cool...I had been considering getting one of those myself. I hope no one misunderstands their following statement thinking that those figures are their target body core temps! "To do that, athletes slept on a water circulated mattress pads to adjust the core temperature to each individual. For some that was 17 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit), for others 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit)."

They reference "glucose and sleep monitors as well as genetic reporting to indicate nutritional needs and muscular capacity". Genetic reporting of this sort is in its infancy, and the reliability is far from established, no less the way to best interpret the data to optimize an athlete's nutrition and recovery plan. While it sounds super cool, I would be very surprised if this offered athletes any advantage over existing methods.

And just how are they using glucose monitors? As a (very rough) proxy for insulin levels, to aid fat loss in a build period, or with the idea that they need to be maintained above a certain level for fuel, and they attempt to use feeding schedules for when the bodies own regulatory systems are insufficient? I see they mention eating something light before bed to keep glucose levels up during sleep, so maybe they are tracking how glucose levels alter sleep quality, as this sword could cut both ways potentially reducing GH and melatonin secretion and compromising sleep instead of aiding it.

In short, it brings up more questions than it answers, and there is precious little other info on the google machine about these guys. Their own website is long on mission statements, and short on real info about what they actually do.

[TheKaiser]

Well, a little additional digging answered a few of my questions, even if it is still pretty shallow info.

An article on the Telegraph website had this quote from the Oathlete guy: "One of the things that Optimized Athlete has discovered is that there is an optimal level of deep sleep which will allow an athlete to produce their best performance on a bike. In order to achieve this level of sleep they monitor the athletes evening glucose levels and recommend snacks that do not create fluctuations in those levels." So it does look like they are mostly looking at glucose in relation to sleep, as I suspected.

Also the Dailymail had this: "Zeo has given the US athletes a sleep tracking device. Chief executive Ben Rubin said: 'Olympic athletes are on the leading edge of performance. You can expect perfect compliance, which leads to perfect data." Zeo it is! I wonder what they will be using for the 2016 Olympics?

And then Wired had a short article on what I assume is their "genetic reporting to indicate nutritional needs" which seems to be done by InsideTracker. The thing is, it sounds super high tech, but the only application they mention was that the blood test showed that Sarah Hammer was deficient in vitamin D. That's the short of thing that anybody's personal physician should be testing for in their yearly physical, not a revolution in scientifically aided athletic performance. The sad and surprising thing is that a top level Olympic athlete in 2012 didn't know that!

[petromyzon]

Very interesting. The interaction between sleep quality and blood glucose seems to be important. I remember reading something about Carlos Sastre and they were saying how when he got very skinny his sleep quality would decline. I wasn't clear whether this was because the negative calorie balance required to get that skinny made him too hungry to sleep or if his sleep was compromised at 4% body fat even if he went to bed on a full stomach.

[drchull]

Now I know as a general rule you never apply what is good for an athlete to the normal population. That leads to fat kids drinking Gatorade as a healthy alternative to pop or anytime they do 5' of exercise. In the general population we counsel against carbohydrates before bed though if you are looking to keep a consistent glucose level you would certainly tend towards more complex carbohydrates and likely some protein.

So much of medicine can simplify down to a piece of multigrain toast with peanut butter. Before bed snack, check, calorie requirements for pregnancy and breast feeding, check. One of my favourite pre ride snacks.

I like the ideas of circulating temp controlled mattress pads. So often my wife is freezing and I am sweating my ass off.

And for your problem Tapey, we are now trying to introduce CBT for sleep disturbances like yours. As you get older, you don't need a full 6 or 8 hours sleep. Worst thing you can do is stare at the clock doing the math on how much sleep you are going to get. Some nights you sleep well some nights you don't, that is life. There does you cognitive behaviour feel therapized?

And since I like going way off topic, TW I thought you would enjoy that my 6 year old daughter wants to start BJJ. She idolizes Rhonda Rousy, but what I love is not the she wants to be her but she wants to beat her. Already working on her striking. Crazy violent kid. She is why I sleep with one eye open.

[Tapeworm]

My sleep distribances are ages 6, 4 and 1.5yrs Not too many ready solutions for that which don't include divorce.

And BJJ for the win! I've been off the mats too long. Plan to get my kids into it very shortly, and best make sure the kids don't beat me too quick.