Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis has teamed with a military sleep expert to boost his team's performance. Gillis understands the connection between sleep and winning and he has taken very commendable (albeit unconventional) steps to make certain his team well-rested.

The Canucks are required to wear a biorhythm bracelet that measures the athlete's waking and sleeping patterns. The information is then used to adjust the team's schedule and hotel room pairings with the goal of maximizing sleep.
While it's unlikely a college coach will have the resources to go as far as Gillis in studying a student-athlete's sleep habits, all coaches should learn to take the consequences of sleep deprivation seriously.

Recent studies have shown the amount of sleep a person gets directly impacts their physical health, emotional well-being, productivity and performance. A lack of sleep can lead to serious health problems such as an increased risk of depression, obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

An on-going study by Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory shows that sleep can also adversely affect a student-athlete's performance.

The 2007 study involved six healthy students on the Stanford men's basketball team. Researchers asked the subjects to maintain their typical sleep-wake patterns for two weeks. After two weeks, the student-athletes were subjected to an extended sleep period in which they obtained as much extra sleep as possible.

"To assess improvements in athletic performance, the students were judged based on their sprint time and shooting percentages. Significant improvements in athletic performance were observed, including faster sprint time and increased free-throws.

Athletes also reported increased energy and improved mood during practices and games, as well as a decreased level of fatigue."

The Stanford researches followed up the 2007 study this year by focusing on members of the Stanford swim team. The same methods from the 2007 study were used.

"Athletic performance was assessed after each regularly scheduled swim practice," reported the findings. "After obtaining extra sleep, athletes swam a 15-meter meter sprint 0.51 seconds faster, reacted 0.15 seconds quicker off the blocks, improved turn time by 0.10 seconds and increased kick strokes by 5.0 kicks."

The Stanford studies have made coaches more aware of the importance of sleep, and many have made changes to their practice and traveling schedules to allow student-athletes more time for sleep.

The results are paying off.

"Many of the athletes in the various sports I have worked with, including the swimmers in this study, have set multiple new personal records and season best times, as well as broken long-standing Stanford and American records while participating in this study," Mah said.

Mah offers these tips to help athletes improve their performance by maximizing their sleep:

• Make sleep a part of your regular training regimen.
• Extend nightly sleep for several weeks to reduce your sleep debt before competition.
• Maintain a low sleep debt by obtaining a sufficient amount of nightly sleep (seven to
• eight hours for adults, nine or more hours for teens and young adults).
• Keep a regular sleep-wake schedule, going to bed and waking up at the same times
• every day.
• Take brief naps to obtain additional sleep during the day, especially if drowsy.

The bottom line is student-athletes need to find time to sleep and they must be supported in those efforts by their trainers, coaches and university administration.
Maybe it's time for coaches to consider slumber parties rather than 6 a.m. practices.

Do you think student-athletes get enough sleep?