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Sleep and the Athlete: Time to Wake Up to the Need for Sleep

By Craig Pickering, SimpliFaster, 06/29/18, 12:00PM PDT

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Knowing these facts, and becoming more experienced myself, led to me feeling much less anxious about sleep the night before a competition, which in turn lead to me sleeping much better.

During my athletics career, I had a love-hate relationship with sleep. I was aware that sleep was an area that was to be prioritized, so I did. I spent many hours asleep, even though I would have much liked to do other things, such as read or play computer games.

From time to time, something would go wrong with my sleep cycle, and I would end up with some mild grade of insomnia. Not being able to sleep is miserable; I have taken sleeping tablets a few times in my life as I had no other option. As per my personality, sleep became something I obsessed over early in my career, and I had to get as much as possible.