Four Ways You Can Improve Your Health and Performance by Sleeping

Did you know that sleep is a critical component to maintaining your weight, staying healthy, and preventing injuries? Not only does sleep help you avoid overuse or fatigue-related injuries, it also gives your performance a boost by allowing your body to recover more completely from the previous day’s activities. There are many factors that go into getting enough and the right kind of sleep.

Get Enough Sleep

Practically everyone has heard that they need to “get enough sleep.” But how much is “enough”?

Generic recommendations, according to the National Sleep Foundation, are 8.5-9.5 hours per night for 11-17 year olds and 7-9 hours for adults, depending on daily activity level. Sleep needs vary by individual lifestyles, so you’ll most likely need to experiment within your age group’s recommendations to find the exact amount of sleep that is optimal for you. And remember, this number will change with age and changes in activity level.

Follow a Sleeping Schedule

Getting enough sleep is a well-known important component of sleeping well, but many people overlook the importance of getting enough sleep on a regular basis. It’s not enough to simply make sure you’re getting a set amount of sleep every night if your bed time varies by several hours. You need to set regular bed times – and this means you should follow these bed times on weekends, too.

Following a set sleeping schedule can be difficult for performing artists due to the late start times of performances, irregular rehearsal schedules, extra rehearsals immediately preceding performances, and cast parties after performances (often starting very late in the evening). However, following a regular sleeping schedule allows your body to get into a biochemical rhythm. This biochemical rhythm ensures that you’ll be alert when you want to be, keeps your immune system strong, and regulates your hunger cycles, which indirectly maintains a healthy body weight.

Get High Quality Sleep

The previous two sections have discussed the quantity of sleep. Equally important is the quality of sleep. Getting 8 hours of tossing and turning is not going to provide you with any of the benefits that you will receive from 8 hours of quality REM sleep.

Ways to improve the quality of your sleep include creating a relaxing bedtime routine that starts an hour or more before the time you want to fall asleep, “unplugging” from your electronics an hour or so before bedtime, creating a sleep-conducive environment in a dark and relatively quiet room, sleeping in a comfortable position on a comfortable mattress, and finish eating at least 2-3 hours before your regular bedtime.

Use your Bed for Sleep, Not Work

A key component to getting high-quality sleep is to avoid using a computer (or phone or tablet), doing homework, reading, watching TV, and other similar activities while you are in bed. These activities can send confusing signals to your brain regarding the level of alertness you want to associate with your bed. Either you’ll fall asleep while working (which isn’t good and can lead to a habit of getting drowsy every time you try to do that work) or you’ll inadvertently tell your brain that you want to be fully awake and alert when you’re lying in or on bed (which will degrade the quality and quantity of your sleep).