Sleepless In Singapore

The 3 amigos

My wife and both two boys recently started wearing an activity tracker. The boys have been very diligent regarding logging 10,000 steps daily. They would even pace up and down the room or hallway just to get more steps to meet this goal.

Actually, I'm much more interested in tracking how much they sleep since it is a well know fact that Singaporeans do not get enough sleep. In fact, a survey showed that 41 percent of Singapore adults get between 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night even though they should be clocking in 7 to 8 hours.

That is bad news as shown by neuroscience Professor Michael Walker in his 2017 New York Times bestseller Why We Sleep. More than 20 large scale epidemiological studies tracking millions of people over many decades showed that "the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life".

In fact Professor Walker suggested that "leading causes of disease and death in developed nations - cue disease, obesity, dementia, diabetes and cancer - all have causal links to a lack of sleep".

The cost to mental health is significant too. Sleep problems may increase risk for developing certain mental illnesses like depression and anxiety disorders, as well as result from them.

Back to kids. It is difficult enough raising a child, but when a child is a student athlete, another layer is added.

My boys and their trackers

I would suggest all student athletes eat five good meals/ snacks a day. This is to help fuel the child's body for long school days. From the time they leave home between 6-7 am in the morning to lessons ending at around 2 pm but most likely extended for training, competitions and tuition.

Think of it like a car. Your student athlete is the car and you need to have good fuel in the car. Parents and child can work together to plan meals based on the student's weekly schedule.

Sleep is the best way for your child's body to recover. It trumps all the compression garments, recovery food, sports drinks etc. With enough sleep there is less chances of your child falling sick and getting injured.

Quality sleep is better than long hours, but good to have both. And it's best to rest without distractions like a mobile phone buzzing through out the night. Also be wary that an activity tracker may overestimate total sleep time (Lee et al, 2019).

One of my patient's child used to be a elite junior triathlete. She would keep the child's phone at bedtime as her child would be using the phone and not sleeping if she didn't.

Conversing with your child athlete while having healthy sit down meals as a family (without your phones) will help touch on many of these points.

Good nutrition, regular, early sleep schedule and physical activity as a family.  Make that your priority in the new year.


Reference

XK Lee, Chee NIYN, JL Ong et al (2019). Validation Of a Consumer Sleep Wearable Device With Actigraphy And Polysomnography In Adolescents Across Sleep Opportunity Manipulations. K Clin Sleep Med. 15(9): 1337-1346.

The above article is done by Singapore researchers at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, under the Duke-NUS Medical School.

I love this picture I took from a book - Goodnight Darth Vader which I bought for my son by Jeffrey Brown.

If Only You Know The Power Of Sleep ....

The power of sleep

While I was still working at the Singapore Sports Council or SSC (now known as the Singapore Institute of Sport or SSI) I used to travel a lot with the Singapore badminton players while they were competing or training overseas.

And no matter where the badminton players were training or competing, their normal routine would be training in the morning, break for lunch and there would always be a nap after lunch before training again. Even our national table tennis players took daily naps when they were not out buying eggs (okay I'm just kidding). No disrespect meant!

Why am I writing about sleep here? You and I know that a lack of sleep can lead to negative consequences. It can affect your mood, cognitive function and physical performance. Few studies though have looked at the opposite - the effects that sleep extension can have on performance.

The American National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours of sleep a night for adults for general health and well being. But a study on Stanford basketball players by researchers Cheri Mah and colleagues showed that with 5-7 weeks of sleep extension, i.e. going to bed earlier and waking later, subjects had improved basketball performance, reaction time and running speed.

The researchers concluded that "extended sleep beyond one's habitual nightly sleep likely contributes to improved athletic performance."

As it is, most of us will find it difficult (myself included) to find more time to sleep. Our smart phones, the iPad, Netflix etc are big distractions. Yes, I have to stay up writing this so you can read it. Well, I'm not racing anymore.

Many of you will focus on improving your performance by training harder and smarter, but those improvements become smaller and more difficult to obtain after a while. Your fellow competitors will likely swim/ bike/ run similar intervals in addition to hitting the weights room etc. It all comes to to all the fine details. Some of these small gains (like sleep extension) are found outside of aerobic and interval training.

It's probably easier to change your bedtime to get more sleep by gradually going to sleep earlier. Try to go 15 to 30 minutes earlier each night to find a good time for yourself.

Sleeping in never happens for my wife and I, our boys are up by 6 am or earlier most mornings. If you can sleep in good for you.

I remember attending a meeting prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics where the then Director of High Performance, SSC was questioning the then CEO of Singapore Badminton Association (SBA) why the Singapore badminton players needed naps when they could be working part time or studying in between training as what many of the elite athletes at the Australian Institute of Sports do.

Then CEO of SBA's reply was if it (naps) has the potential to impact performance in a positive manner, then we try to take care of it.

In the picture below you see me more excited than Ronald Susilo after he defeated Lin Dan in the 1st round at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

That's how we should help our athletes.

Reference

Mah CD, Mah KE et al (2011). The Effects Of Sleep Extension On The Athletic Performance Of Collegiate Basketball Players. Sleep. 34(7): 943-950. DOI: 10.5665/sleep.1132

I really like this picture I took from a Star Wars book - Goodnight Darth Vader which I bought for my son by Jeffrey Brown.