How to Optimise Sleep for Recovery in Football

Sleep is the foundation of recovery.

Whilst there are many fancy gadgets and methods of recovery available to players, if they don’t get their sleep right then it has a negative knock on effect in different areas.

Although one night’s bad sleep is not great, generally players can cope and get through the requirements for the day.

However, once those bad nights start racking up, this is when the negative issues can arise.

Examples of common issues include: slower glycogen repletion, increased muscle damage, increased injury risk and increased mental fatigue.

The known rule within the general population is that we should be targeting 8 hours of good quality sleep.

Firstly, footballers (and athletes in general) need a higher sleep quantity than the average person due to the demands exercise places upon their bodies.

Secondly, just because you are in bed for 8 hours doesn’t equal ‘good sleep’.

Sleep is broken down into various stages consisting of rapid and non-rapid eye movement (REM and NREM).

When we reach our deep sleep stage (NREM), this is where the greatest repair and recovery takes place.

The problem during a typical sleep cycle is that these stages are greatest early on during sleep, and both the duration and frequency of them declines throughout the night.

So, for footballers, we need to ensure both high quantity and quality of sleep to enhance recovery and adaptation.

The problem practitioners face when dealing with sleep issues is the many curveballs that are thrown in the way.

Below is an excellent figure from Walsh et al. (2021) highlighting these common barriers.

How can we ensure sleep is optimised in football? Let’s dive in.

Sleep Hygiene Education

Social media is now full of ‘wellness gurus’ who promote ways that humans can optimise their health.

One such area that is often pushed is ‘sleep hygiene’ practices to improve sleep.

This often involves crazy routines consisting of 5am wake ups, meditation, yoga, daily walks and excessive wind down routines.

Whilst some aspects of these areas can be useful, it’s important to be realistic when it comes to footballers.

Below is an image of a typical good sleep hygiene practice.

In my experience working with footballers, the big ones that influence sleep are excessive caffeine intake after 2pm and too much screen time before bed.

One player I used to work with had a habit of staying up until 3am playing in FIFA tournaments online, then had to train at 10:30am the next day.

This is obviously not going to optimise performance – therefore, this is where the education aspect must be used.

It’s not simply a case of “don’t do that again, please”, it’s a behavioural change that must be reinforced over a longitudinal period.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, speaks about the duration for a new behaviour becoming an automatic habit to take around 66 days (around 2 months).

Therefore, sleep hygiene and education must be adhered to over time, not just as a one-off feedback comment to the player.

Nutrition and Sleep

Changing the way a player eats, particularly in the lead in to bedtime, can have a significant impact on their sleep practice.

Halson (2014) wrote an excellent review paper which discusses the nutritional aspects to sleep.

One of the key points was that a high glycaemic index (GI) carbohydrate diet (e.g. white rice, potatoes) may promote better sleep, particularly when coupled with high protein.

Conversely, high fat diets have been found to negatively influence total sleep time.

It’s worth noting that when consuming food before bedtime, this is needs to be done at least 1 hour before (ideally longer) to avoid excessive digestive disruption and alterations in blood flow.

In addition, if a player is reducing their calorie intake (e.g. losing body fat) then this can negatively impact sleep quality.

Many people like to use supplements to potentially enhance sleep.

However, there is limited evidence of these supplements actually working in quality-controlled studies.

Of the supplements available, it appears vitamin D, amino acids and melatonin have the great positive impact on sleep.

Despite this research, there is currently a lack of data within football populations (particularly elite populations) to see whether this transfers into the sporting world.

Napping and Sleep Extension

The daytime nap. One of life’s true pleasures!

In modern society, napping can be seen as weakness, as a sign you can’t ‘hack the pace’ of the working world.

But for footballers, napping can be a great tool to enhance the recovery process through sleep.

It is generally recommended to nap between 20-30 minutes (ideally) to avoid going into NREM sleep.

This goes against what we discussed earlier (NREM = good for recovery). However, during a nap, if we wake during a NREM phase then we feel groggy and often worse than before.

Some people prefer longer naps (up to 90 minutes) and still feel great, likely as they have completed one full cycle of sleep (REM and NREM) and wake before going into another cycle.

My advice would be for players to experiment individually and see what works for them. However, ensure players avoid late daytime naps (>15:00) as this can negatively influence the subsequent night time sleep.

Sleep extension is also another proposed way to enhance recovery through sleep.

This works by asking players to consciously sleep longer (e.g. from 8 > 10 hours sleep per night).

Generally, sleep extension has found significant improvements in cognitive tasks but lacks translation into football physical tests, such as Yo-Yo and CMJ tests (Fullagar et al. 2016).

To note, the research around sleep extension interventions in football is very limited, with no quality data (to my knowledge) in elite populations.

Take Home Messages

Without good sleep, footballers will always be playing catch up when it comes to recovery.

Below are some tips to ensure your players are optimising their sleep for recovery:

- Promote good sleep hygiene, with a view of changing behaviour into an automatic habit (can take > 2 months).

- Consume a high GI carbohydrate diet and limit high fat intake before bed.

- Supplement with vitamin D, amino acids and melatonin if needed.

- Use napping (ideally ~30 mins) and sleep extension strategies to further enhance sleep for recovery.

If you would like to learn more about how to optimise sleep for recovery in football, and other aspects of recovery, check out my football fitness mentorship community here.

That’s all for this week. See you next time!