QUESTION: How much does sleep affect my ability to ride and recover? I have a busy schedule and rarely get more than 6 hours a night. Do I need more? — Sarah M.
RBR ANSWER: Different people need different amounts of sleep in order to recover from the routine activities of daily life. If you’re also training or even riding recreationally, you’ll almost certainly need to sleep more.
A good rule of thumb: Try for 8-9 hours a night if you’re riding around 150 miles per week.
Of course, some people claim they do just fine on as few as 5 hours per night. They wake up even without an alarm. But if you make your bed in the morning and long to crawl back into it, then feel sleepy during the day and lack enthusiasm for training (not to mention work and daily chores), you definitely aren’t sleeping enough.
If you can’t extend your nightly time in bed, try for a short nap in the afternoon. Not possible? Then you may have to cut down on your riding. If you don’t, you’ll soon fall victim to stalled progress, or worse.
It’s not just quantity of sleep but QUALITY as well. Alcohol, stress, too much caffeine, even and computer screen time just before bed all can negatively affect sleep quality.
This answer is very dangerous, especially from someone who isn’t an expert on sleep. Most opinions from university scientists who study sleep state (FROM RESEARCH) that humans regardless of activity level need AT MINIMUM 7 hours of sleep. I don’t think we need research to understand that Americans are chronically sleep deprived. In fact, we are so sleep-deprived that we don’t even know what it feels like to be fully rested.
So when you state dangerous claims like “Of course, some people do just fine on as few as 5 hours per night”, you are encouraging (r making it seem normal) the very tragic American lifestyle of sleep deprivation that lead to shorter life spans, health problems, and faster aging.
Please delete this post.
Agree