During the Beijing Winter Olympics, two Olympic champions, Gu Ailing and Gao Tingyu, both said in interviews that they slept for 10 hours a day. Gao Tingyu had to carry his own pillow wherever he went; Gu Ailing even regarded "sleeping for 10 hours" as his "secret weapon": he should take a bath before going to bed, play the piano for a while, write a diary, do not look at his mobile phone and TV before going to bed, and ask himself to go to bed early.
For athletes, is there any scientific basis for guaranteeing 10 hours of sleep? For us ordinary people, is it also necessary to emulate the schedule of athletes?
Athletes should sleep longer
Stanford University in the United States did a study in 2018: the Athletes of the Stanford University basketball, rugby and swimming teams increased their sleep time from 8 hours to 10 hours, and persevered, as a way to compare their performance on the field after the extended sleep time.
From the exercise data to see the experimental comparison results:
Basketball players shot 9 percent more from 3-point range and 9.2 percent more shots from 3-pointers
The rugby player's 20-yard round-trip time increased by 0.1 seconds
Swimmers increased their 15-meter sprint time by 0.51 seconds, their reaction time into the water by 0.15 seconds, and their turning time from the wall by 0.1 seconds
Don't look at it as just a few tenths of a second of an improvement, but in the arena it can be a key factor in determining victory or defeat.
Research from Stanford University can be found that athletes have their own special competitive needs, so it is necessary to maintain 10 hours of sleep. The chart below shows the daily rest periods of top athletes in various fields, basically 9-11 hours.
But for us ordinary people, we don't have to go to the arena, and we don't have the same amount of training as athletes; due to various objective factors such as work, study, and stress, it is more difficult for us to sleep for 10 hours a day. And there's no need to go after 10 hours of sleep a day.
The optimal sleep time for the average person has different optimal sleep durations at different ages. Different research institutions also have their own guidance. Xiaobian synthesized the recommendations of several institutions (Sleep Foundation, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, American Society of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research) on sleep time, and sorted out a table of sleep duration.
It is better to sleep for a long time than to sleep soundly
The length of sleep time is also based on the quality of sleep. So the same model of this Olympic champion, we can actually get it. It's just that what gets them is the healthy schedule and habits behind them.