How sleep helps athletes like LeBron James and Roger Federer – and the ways we can get a good night’s rest too
Dr Meeta Singh is chief of sleep medicine at Detroit’s Henry Ford Sleep Laboratory, and has worked with some of the world’s top athletes. She shares her tips on using this ‘natural performance enhancer’ to boost your own game
When the likes of three-time NBA champion LeBron James reportedly needs 12 hours sleep a day, and Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer gets around 10 to 12 hours each night, it shows the importance of getting some shut eye.
“Smart players are understanding it’s important to sleep, that all the recovery and rest occurs while you are sleeping,” said Dr Meeta Singh, chief of sleep medicine at Henry Ford Sleep Laboratory in the US city of Detroit.
The sleep coach, who advises elite athletes on harnessing sleep for peak performance, was in Hong Kong to talk about technology addiction at the recent RISE Conference at the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. She cautioned the audience about the risk of increasing screen time sapping users’ slumber time, which she calls a “health hazard”.
For those of us who are not sports professionals, the idea of sleeping for nearly half a day is mind-boggling, especially in sleep-poor Hong Kong, where countless polls, including the 2016 AIA Healthy Living Index, have found Hongkongers on average clock only 6.5 hours – a daily sleep deficit of 1.5 hours.
But elite athletes have greater physical and mental needs, from their gruelling training routines to hectic travel schedules that disrupt their internal body clock.
