Unlocking the Power of Sleep for Athletes: 10 Key Insights

Kamal Datta: Hey everyone, welcome to What Runs a Run podcast and it's a nutrition and coaching in 26.2 series. Now, most runners think we work or the training happens between the start and the stop buttons on their Garmin or Strava. But we are here to argue that the two hour workout is only as good as your other 22 hours. Today we are exploring the 22 hour athlete where sleep is the passive nutrition that builds that engine. Joining us today is Dr. Amy Bender. Amy let's start with a quick introduction of your work and you have been working in the intersection of athletes and the sleep for a long, time. So let's start with a quick introduction about your background and your ⁓ kind of how did you actually get interested into this field?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yeah, no, thanks for having me, Kamal. It's great to be here. I started in the sleep field actually as a sleep technologist. So I was kind of hooking up patients with electrodes, monitoring their sleep stages, how many times they're stopping breathing during the middle of the night. And that's kind of how I started in the sleep field. was in that capacity, but more in a research setting. So I was working at a sleep deprivation lab, sleep and cognition lab, where they were doing research on how to you know, how sleep deprivation impacts your thinking, your cognition, your decision making, your reaction time. And then from there, I was just so interested in the science that I ended up getting a master's and PhD at that same lab. And from there, got a postdoc. went up to Canada and was working with athletes. So that was my first time working with athletes was following the PhD. I was working on a project with Canadian Olympic team athletes and monitoring their sleep and trying to optimize their sleep. So that was my first and I've been an athlete myself. I played college basketball and so I was always interested in the athletic side. as well as combining that with sleep. And I've been in the sleep field for a while now, kind of been in various roles, but continue to try and get the word out there on how important sleep is for athletes.

Kamal Datta: That's great. So you are also an Ironman yourself, right?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes, I did an Iron Man actually during my PhD. did an Iron Man and yeah, a while back before I had my three kids.

Kamal Datta: ⁓ wow. Yeah, I was talking to Dave McElibre. He did his 10th Ironman. He's 70, I believe. Yeah. So he took all this to get to the 10th number. for sure.

Amy Bender, PhD: ⁓ wow. Wow. Okay, well, there's hope for me to get another one in.

Kamal Datta: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a possibility for sure. But definitely your work is intertwined, you being an athlete yourself, and also looking at the intersection of sleep and the athletes themselves. To start with, maybe you can start with overall to lay out kind of the sleep cycle. ⁓ One thing I'm curious about is Is the sleep cycle for an athlete different than a normal person or it is the same?

Amy Bender, PhD: ⁓ Good question. think the sleep cycle changes as you age. So depending on where you're at in your lifespan, that does depend on... So for example, when you get older, you have less ⁓ deeper sleep. What we generally see with athletes is because they're using... The physical side, they're using their muscles, ⁓ even more potentially cognitive load. We see more deeper sleep with athletes in general, where, you know, deep sleep is where growth hormone is being released. So if you're using your muscles a lot, you know, you have to repair those tissues. And so we do see a little bit, probably more deeper sleep. in athletes than we do in the general population. And also depending on your workout as well. So if you're, you know, on the weekend, you'll do your long run. You'll probably see more deeper sleep following that type of activity.

Kamal Datta: I see. So if you want to break down the sleep cycle ⁓ for like, what are the different stages of sleep? I know you spoke about it and you work ⁓ extensively on this one, but let's start with the basic foundational layer. And then if you say, I think you mentioned the deep sleep part for athletes, it is more. ⁓ prevalent or it's more deeper than maybe if you're not working out or running that many miles in a training or over the weekend.

Amy Bender, PhD: Yeah, so ⁓ generally we have two states of sleep. So we have non REM sleep, non rapid eye movement sleep. This is where, you know, where I mentioned that deeper sleep is occurring, but also lighter stages of sleep. So stage one, stage two, and then stage three, which is kind of the deepest stages sleep. And then we also have REM sleep. So rapid eye movement sleep. And that's where dreams are occurring. You may have twitches during this state, your eyes are moving and we can dream in any stage of sleep, but during REM sleep is where that movie-like state of sleep where you wake up in the morning and you remember one of your dreams.

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: So we kind of fluctuate from non-REM to REM sleep in about 90 minutes and we'll have these four to five to six sleep cycles per night where we go from non-REM to REM sleep. Generally we'll see a lot of that deeper state of sleep in the first half of the night ⁓ and then more towards the end of the night we'll see more REM sleep occurring.

Kamal Datta: Thank

Amy Bender, PhD: So the REM periods in the beginning of the night start off fairly small, maybe a few minutes, but then at the end of the night it can be many, minutes, know, 30, 60 minutes depending on how... sleep deprived you are, for example, but that's kind of our general sleep architecture across the night is fluctuating between non-REM to REM sleep, multiple cycles throughout the night with a lot of that deep sleep happening in the beginning and then more of REM sleep happening ⁓ at the end of the night.

Kamal Datta: I see. And is it possible to know what state someone is in or can we actually measure or track it?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes, I think the gold standard for measuring sleep would be using electroencephalography. So EEG, looking at the electrical activity of the brain with electrodes. But there's also wearable devices as well, which is more of a proxy of sleep and has a little bit harder time, you know, capturing some of those sleep stages. ⁓ Most of the wearables out there are generally good at capturing like the timing of sleep, the duration of sleep, maybe awakenings that are happening. ⁓ But when it comes to the sleep stages, it can be a little bit not as accurate.

Kamal Datta: I You know, I had, or I paused using a sleep tracking device. And ⁓ I think one of the discussions you had in a prior podcast that you did, I think you talked about a little bit, if you see your recovery score in the morning, that can have an impact on how you perceive the day. And probably one of the, for all of the reasons I paused it for some time to see what impact it has. But. I think you had an extensive research paper in 2023 on the tracking and wearable technology on that too. How do you actually track the sleep? So I'm either wearing an aura ring or a say whoop band. Like what are the metrics they're tracking? And I know they're improving probably as the day passes by, but from your research, what do you see, what are the key metrics they're tracking? And maybe you can, B would be, can it be as much as accurate that you see? And then as they calculate the recovery score to give a feedback to the person.

Amy Bender, PhD: It's challenging to know sometimes with commercial wearable devices what a sleep quality score is actually composed of. ⁓ So there's a bit of a black box when it comes to truly understanding where these scores are coming from. So for example, ⁓ I actually am wearing an aura ring right now and I took a break, I probably took about a year break from tracking my sleep and as you mentioned, people can become obsessed with their sleeps called orthosomnia. So they become obsessed with the perfect night's sleep. And so this, the wearable device isn't really helping them in that regard because they're worried about, ⁓ it's telling me that I got a 45 score. And that can have a negative impact on your performance or how you are going to feel during the day, how alert you're going to feel. And so I think people have to be careful.

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: especially those who are really anxious about their sleep. It may be the best decision for you not to actually track your sleep. ⁓ Others, it can be motivating. if they see, you know, they can see overall the duration of your sleep, how much sleep you're getting. It's looking like across the week, you know, it's been a really short sleep week for me. So let me try and, you know, get more sleep, go to bed early, maybe sleep in a little bit later. So I think it can be both helpful and hurtful depending on the person and the situation. ⁓ And so, yeah, I think like I mentioned before,

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: The timing of the sleep, does a pretty good job of gauging when you're going to bed, when you're waking up, and how that changes across the week. It does a pretty good job at calculating the amount of sleep that you're getting. And then, I mean, there's a lot of really other interesting things depending on the device. Some of them can capture

Kamal Datta: I see.

Amy Bender, PhD: blood oxygen levels. So maybe there's could be a marker of sleep apnea if you stop breathing during the middle of the night. Yeah, I think we just have to be cautious with what information we're taking from these devices and also how it impacts you personally. And if you're more of that anxious person who

Kamal Datta: right. Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: is maybe obsessed with getting nine hours of sleep per night, you may want to take a little bit of a break.

Kamal Datta: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, one of the things I saw it was prevalent is that kind of heart rate variability is one of the key metrics that going in as a input to give me the recovery score. And another thing was the body temperature. I said the two I saw I still. And I love data. that's one of the things is like, when I see this, like I'm going to go dig in, like what is there and what does it even mean? So I can go in a rabbit hole, which happened with me. It was like, okay, I got a recovery scale score of the 35%. Now I want to know what does it mean? It's in yellow or in red. But how do a person who probably may not need to understand the complexity of all this data that goes into calculate the recovery score. What does it mean for someone who may be not as interested in understanding all the technical aspects of what went into score?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yeah, think it's not like you don't necessarily need to know necessarily how it's being calculated. I think what's more important is understanding what is more valid data, as I mentioned before. So really trying to understand, okay, is this data that I'm seeing accurate?

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: Does it compare to the gold standard? Is my device telling me that if I'm getting 10 % deep sleep, is that really a problem or is it more that the device is not very accurate? ⁓ So I think, yeah, I think you can look at the data, but maybe before... maybe before looking at it in the morning, really kind of thinking about, how do I feel today before looking at that score? And then also just gauging throughout the day, ⁓ you know, am I more sleepy today? And does that correlate with what I'm seeing from the device? ⁓ So I think, yeah, just using your best judgment, obviously not taking what they're telling me as absolute truth.

Kamal Datta: Right.

Amy Bender, PhD: but really trying to recognize subjectively, does this match with what I'm seeing? And then also, you know, sometimes it'll say, ⁓ it looks like you need more time to recover. Maybe you should skip your workout today or something along those lines. I would also take that with a grain of salt. And there's actually some evidence to suggest that

Kamal Datta: Yeah, yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: when you're sleep deprived that you should be working out ⁓ because of the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise, which counteracts the inflammatory effects of sleep deprivation. Now, I'm not saying, you know, maybe go all out, do, you know, if I get a poor night's sleep, I'm gonna go 120%. No, you got to be smart about it. ⁓ Obviously, you don't want to risk becoming injured. I don't know, I'm kind of, and maybe many of my sleep scientist friends would disagree that exercise isn't as important as sleep. But I think there's some interesting research out there showing that. when you are sleep deprived that exercise can counteract ⁓ the impact.

Kamal Datta: So I have almost a teenage son and I have to explain why he needs sleep. So the way I try to explain it, and again now I have to explain it more further. It's like, it's like your iPad. You need to recharge your iPad, you know, the night before. So if I have to explain, what does actually the recovery score mean? How does someone should interpret that?

Amy Bender, PhD: Hmm.

Kamal Datta: either it's red or yellow or green, if you want to explain to someone, may not be technical, what does that recovery score actually mean for them?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yeah, are you, you mean like with ⁓ the aura ring? Yeah, okay. Well, it means different things depending on the device itself, obviously, because it's using these different types of calculations. But I think what overall what they're trying to get at is factoring in the amount of sleep that you're getting, the timing of your sleep, is it

Kamal Datta: wearable devices. Yeah. share

Amy Bender, PhD: slightly different than what you typically do. ⁓ The level of deep sleep that you get, the heart rate variability, you know, does it drop relatively quickly or is it more later on in the night? ⁓ And so based on a lot of these algorithms and calculations, ⁓ a higher score usually indicates that you had a better night's sleep, for example.

Kamal Datta: Yeah. Okay, thank you for ⁓ at least a double clicking on what does this mean? And you're right, definitely depends on whether I'm wearing an oaring or a loop band or any other wearables that giving me that insight. Now, so we talked about the sleep, the cycles of the sleep and some of the wearable devices potentially tracking and giving me a feedback. Now, To identify whether I have any issues with sleep quality or with my sleep or not, I think you have done some extensive research, which is one of your flagship research on coming up with a questionnaire to understand, do I have a problem with my sleep or not? So if you want to, I'm just curious, I'm very curious about how did you come up with that questionnaire that you recommend everyone should take? Or if you want to break it down, how does it actually help someone to identify if they have any problem or not through that questionnaire? there.

Amy Bender, PhD: Yeah, that was part of my postdoc work when I was working with the Canadian Olympic team athletes. this questionnaire had been developed previously, but it hadn't been validated. And for my project, we actually validated that in 199 Canadian Olympic team athletes from various different sports.

Kamal Datta: ⁓ okay.

Amy Bender, PhD: ⁓ And so there was a lot of math involved in validating that, looking at the validity, the reliability of the questionnaire. ⁓ But the main components are looking at duration, how long it's taking you to fall asleep, ⁓ are you using caffeine, are you sleepy during the day? The timing of your sleep as well. So duration, quality, timing are kind of those three main pillars of a good night's sleep. And then, yeah, it's a short questionnaire. It takes probably less than 10 minutes to complete. And maybe we can put a link in the show notes to the questionnaire. Yeah, that would be great. ⁓ But.

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm. would love to, I would love to, yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: Once you reach a certain threshold, there becomes a point where you have no sleep disturbance issues, you have mild sleep disturbance issues, moderate or severe. And so this questionnaire puts people into categories of none, mild, moderate, severe. And once you hit the moderate threshold, you may need intervention to see a sleep specialist. ⁓ and be able to just verify whether or not you have a sleep disorder. ⁓ When you're more in the moderate or mild category, may, none, so starting with I guess none, I think education is still important. So education on the amount of sleep you should be getting, how you improve the quality of that sleep. So even if you

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: score like a perfect score, you know, I think there's still things that need to be done like this education. Now, when we get into the mild category, then obviously education is important, but potentially monitoring. So just tracking how sleep is going throughout the season. And then

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: when you hit that moderate category, then that's where you may need to seek help from a sleep professional and the severe as well. And so there may be treatment requirements based on if you have a certain type of sleep disorder.

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm. Have you seen any distribution across those different ⁓ mild, medium, or severe population?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yeah, I mean, I did do a research paper and it was almost a thousand London marathon participants and we found about like a little less than 25 % were more in that moderate to severe category. And I would say that that checks out across the board as well in even the Canadian Olympic team athletes we were looking at. you know, maybe 20 to 25 % may have a sleep issue based on the questionnaire.

Kamal Datta: ⁓ okay. And where does the general population fall in the distribution curve? Is it moderate or less than moderate? Okay. ⁓ okay.

Amy Bender, PhD: Well, ⁓ probably about the same actually. Yeah. Yes. So there's about a quarter of people out there who maybe aren't getting enough sleep. So they're sleep deprived or suffer from a sleep disorder. And obviously there's a bidirectional relationship. So if you have insomnia or if you have ⁓ obstructive sleep apnea that that can be causing you to become sleep deprived. ⁓ So yeah, I would say it's probably about a quarter of the population aren't getting enough sleep who are technically sleep deprived. They're not getting at least seven hours as an adult. And then within that group, there are people who have sleep disorders as well.

Kamal Datta: What is ⁓ enough sleep? you say for adults it's seven to nine hours. Is that what you say it for? And in different age groups, what is the of the enough sleep, the definition of enough sleep?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes. Yeah, it depends on how old you are. So, for example, if you're a 10 year old, you need roughly about 10 hours. As you get into the teenage years, so you need more like eight to 10. And then from there, then it drops to seven to nine hours. I think

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: I think nine hours is probably too much for an adult. And so there may be something going on if someone is continuing. I mean, there is individual variability in the amount of sleep that you need, but based on some of the research that we've seen, more like seven and a half hours might be that sweet spot for sleep duration.

Kamal Datta: I

Amy Bender, PhD: you know, those who are getting more, could be an underlying sleep disorder. For example, like sleep apnea where they have to get nine and a half because their sleep is being disrupted throughout the night. ⁓ So yeah, I would say that for adults, definitely hitting that minimum seven hour. And it's likely that you probably need more.

Kamal Datta: I see.

Amy Bender, PhD: And that can vary from person to person. So there may be a very small subset who don't need seven. There may be a small subset who need more like nine. However, if we look at like true short sleepers, we see that across the entire population, those who can get by on less than six hours per night, have no performance deficits, have no health impact. It's less than 1 % of the population. one of the most dangerous things that happens when you're sleep deprived is that you think that you're performing well. And we see that in the lab all the time where they'll subjectively rate their performance as being good. But when we look at it objectively, they're having lapses of attention, their reaction time is slowed. ⁓ And so when you're sleep deprived, you can't accurately gauge how much, you know, how well you're doing when it comes to performance. So for those of you out there, we're like, ⁓ I'm just a short sleeper. I do fine on little sleep.

Kamal Datta: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: You know, if we were to look at that objectively, we may see a different story.

Kamal Datta: That's very interesting. Yeah, I know a lot of folks think in similar fashion, like, I can get by with four hours or five hours. ⁓ But yeah, the story is how much they are deprived and what is the impact of it, which may not be, you know, they're looking at it subjectively, but objectively, it may be way more than they are thinking what it is. ⁓ It's a good point. Thank you. Now. Amy, does it vary for athletes, for a runner who say, hey, I know you have the spring season is on, people are running say Boston and they're going to run London a week later or less than a week later. Does it enough time varies for athletes like who are actively training for their goals? Like you did Ironman, so I'm sure it has an extensive training program to get ready for this. Would that enough time varies for them versus a person who may not be going through that level of training?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes, think, for example, in Ironman, just anecdotally, ⁓ I slept for, following that event, I slept for 10 hours for at least a week straight, you know? So, depending on the event, it may require more recovery than what you're normally used to because

Kamal Datta: Okay. Okay.

Amy Bender, PhD: tissues, muscles need to be repaired and with that growth hormone is being released and helping repair the damages being done. So I think, yeah, depending on what event you're doing, it may require more recovery than a 5K run, for example.

Kamal Datta: So would you redefine the enough time for an athlete who is going through, I say, you you talked about a race, so it's post recovery after the event, but what about during the training phase? Would there be a different recommendation for enough time for them?

Amy Bender, PhD: I think depending on the load, ⁓ and I mean, the best, this probably isn't a very realistic answer for runners out there who are typically having to set an alarm and wake up and run, you know, to get the workouts in. But I would say, are you waking up without an alarm? You know, if you're not, ⁓ if you're having, if that alarm is waking you up day in and day out,

Kamal Datta: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: it's likely that you're not getting sleep. Those who can kind of wake up naturally, it's probably likely that they got good quality sleep. had, ⁓ you know, enough duration, but that alarm is kind of a sign that, you know, maybe I'm interrupting my sleep and maybe I'm not getting enough. So can I, can I make up for some of that sleep loss based on Maybe taking a nap during the day or getting to bed earlier or maybe even sleeping in a little bit on one of the weekend days.

Kamal Datta: I think we're going to double click on that part, which I think very curious about their extensive work on sleep banking. But before you go to the sleep banking, think I to double click on your work and your recommendation on different chronotypes of people. Some people at night hours, some people go to bed early. What does the research that you have done extensively tell us about kind of a sleeper you are, what time you go to bed, what kind of impact on the performance the next day?

Amy Bender, PhD: There's some great research on, depending on the timing of the event, certain chronotypes will do well. So for example, if you're more of a night owl, melatonin is being released later, that sleepiness hormone, and so it's really difficult for a night owl

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: to go to bed early because that's when that's when you know melatonin is being released and they find that the night owls perform better later on in the afternoon versus an early bird type who melatonin is being released earlier obviously is ending earlier on in the morning and so they're more alert when they wake up in the morning. than maybe a night owl who has to get up early. So yeah, there's some great work on depending on the timing of the event, who does better. And in general, in the research that I've done, the night owls have a more difficult time because they are having to adapt to society.

Kamal Datta: Hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: Obviously if you're a night owl runner, you know, you're having to get up really early to compete in some of these events. So ⁓ for night owls, it can be more challenging. And I think that there are some interventions that can be done to help mitigate the impact of that. And one of them would be getting lots of light in the morning, blocking light at night. You know having a good wind down routine to help set your body up for sleep Those are some things people can do and even melatonin for example, you know working with your provider ⁓ To Obviously, I'm not a sleep doctor so I don't want to recommend that and it is over-the-counter but Melatonin can also be useful for those who have more of a delayed sleep phase

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: who want to kind of advance that phase earlier.

Kamal Datta: So what is the role of melatonin? I'm not aware of ⁓ being fully alert. So it is helping us to get to an alert state after we wake up.

Amy Bender, PhD: ⁓ so melatonin is our sleepiness hormone. So it's being released a few hours prior to your normal bedtime and then ramps up during the night. so typically it's kind of at the highest peak around three hours before you normally wake up and then it dissipates. so if you're

Kamal Datta: I see. Got it.

Amy Bender, PhD: If you're a night owl and let's say your melatonin starts at 10 p.m. for example and normally it would be you know dissipating around 8 a.m. If you were to wake up at 7 a.m. obviously you wouldn't be as alert as if you woke up a little bit later so yeah that's that's kind of what I saying.

Kamal Datta: Yeah. Now that makes sense. ⁓ no, that's good. Thank you. Because I was trying to understand the impact of this. So yeah, I'm sure they will have a difficult time. as you know, most of the running events are morning events. So I would guess it would be challenging. But as you said, there are ways to circumvent that ⁓ for sure. ⁓ That brings me to the point of the travel and jet lag management and I know you have done some extensive work on that as well. ⁓ I'm personally very curious to learn about your take on this, how to manage jet lag. I'm running London a month from now, so I'll be six hours east coast to London, so five, six hours balance. And I plan to be there a week early, which I think should be enough, but... In general, people who travel, and I think you worked with ⁓ Canadian teams who probably travel to different destinations to compete, ⁓ what is the impact of a jet lag on performance? And then some of the tips that you may have, how to overcome ⁓ that impact.

Amy Bender, PhD: It can be really challenging and just thinking about all of these athletes that I've worked with, you know, there was one in particular who had a hard time traveling ⁓ and could not sleep on the plane. Now that doesn't have to do with jet lag, but what we find is that if you're sleep deprived leading into a trip, you're going to suffer more jet lag. than if you're well rested leading into the trip. So I think that's one tip right there is to be well rested. ⁓ And it impacts your ability, you know, lot of times with these Olympic athletes, they're wanting to have quality training time once they arrive. You know, obviously they do have a few days to adjust, but you know, they're itching for that quality training once they get there. And so,

Kamal Datta: right

Amy Bender, PhD: It can be detrimental for performance. can, you can lead to sleepiness. It can lead to insomnia, you know, not going to sleep at the right time or feeling really tired during the day. And so, yeah, it can be, it can be very detrimental. And so I like in your instance, you're getting there about a week early. And what we find is that if you were to do nothing, that it takes about a day per hour of time zone traveled. So for you, you know, maybe six days, especially when you're traveling east. When you're traveling west, it might be a little bit quicker, less than a day per hour travel or per time zone traveled. ⁓ But what you want to do is to try and prepare ahead of time. pre-trip before departure. So if you're traveling east, you want to go to bed early, wake up early, get lots of light in the morning, block light at night, ⁓ know, eat meals earlier, train earlier, train in the morning, and all of that can help speed your adjustment time in the three days prior to the trip.

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm. I see.

Amy Bender, PhD: If you're going west, you want to do the opposite. So you want to go to bed later, wake up later, get light at night, block light in the morning, and obviously delay your meals and your training. Even like training after work, for example, might be a good idea if you are traveling west. So those are just a few tips that people can utilize. Definitely be well rested into the trip. make these adjustments with light, feeding, meals, training, etc. And then once you get at the destination, you know, really trying to take it easy those first couple of days and also just trying to get light outside. So go for a walk. If you do have to take a nap, limit those naps to under 30 minutes.

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: Because if you're taking, you know, a three hour nap, it's going to impact your ability to fall asleep on time at the destination. So yeah, those are just some of the tips people can utilize.

Kamal Datta: Thank you. I'm just curious why it is difficult when you go east versus west.

Amy Bender, PhD: Ooh, yeah, great question. Our circadian rhythms are typically longer than 24 hours. And so it's a lot easier to delay, it's a lot easier to go to bed later, because naturally our circadian rhythm, ⁓ so, you know, circa meaning around, dia, a day, so our circadian rhythm is about 24 hours. ⁓ And it's generally longer than 24 hours. And so it makes it a lot easier to just go to bed later, wake up later, versus like trying to do the opposite, where advance your rhythm, where you're having to go to bed earlier, wake up earlier. So in general, travel east is a lot more challenging than travel west. And travel east is obviously harder, harder to adjust when it comes to the time zone versus less than a day for Travel West.

Kamal Datta: I see. And if I'm getting your recommendation, I think you are. recommending try to get closer to the time zone you're traveling to before you travel in terms of your routines, right? Think as close as you can. If you're going in a, say, 12 hour or 14 hours, like I'm thinking about Sydney. So that's a lot of, to simulate that scenario, would be probably next to impossible being in the East Coast, but get as much as close as you can to that time zones kind of cadence, I see.

Amy Bender, PhD: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Kamal Datta: That's a great tip and I definitely want to take it in and before I start the travel for sure. ⁓ That brings me to this point. I am sleep deprived and you have ⁓ different studies this concept of sleep banking that you talk about. So I'm sleep deprived for whatever reasons, either it's a trouble or jet lag, or I have some difficulty falling asleep. I'm very fascinated with this concept of sleep banking. ⁓ If you want to just start explaining what it is, how someone should interpret sleep banking.

Amy Bender, PhD: Sleep banking is the getting extra sleep. So putting sleep into the bank for when you need it, ⁓ leading into an important competition, leading into travel. So are there ways that you can get more sleep leading into these areas where you're probably gonna be more sleep deprived with travel? ⁓ competition, waking up early, and those kind of things. So there's been a lot of really great research out there in rugby athletes, in cyclists, ⁓ even in runners as well, where if you're able to get more sleep leading into this period, you will perform better than if you just got your normal amount of sleep. ⁓

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: And so yeah, it's really, really interesting. mean, people out there will say you can't make up for lost sleep. ⁓ But those who do get more leading into a sleep deprivation period do perform better than if they're just getting their normal amount. ⁓ So yeah, it's a great technique for people, especially leading into

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: something, an important event like runners have all of the time with a marathon, you you're doing the London marathon, ⁓ which is more challenging because you're having to travel as well. ⁓ And the period of time is that it varies, you know, some studies show a four week period, others show a two week period.

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: Other show benefit even just based on three days prior to the event. So it really depends on your situation. And I would argue that even if you don't have a lot of time leading into the event, I mean, can you take the three days before and just really try and get more sleep, go to bed early, wake up early, or even nap? during the day to try and bank some of that sleep so that you'll perform better during the competition.

Kamal Datta: And the recommendation is it's in addition to your ⁓ definition of the enough sleep that you mentioned, right? Seven to nine hours for adults. So basically you add on top to back for your next, okay.

Amy Bender, PhD: Mm-hmm.

Kamal Datta: ⁓ Is it dependent on where you are? If I'm traveling, I can start it before I start traveling or it has to be in the same time zone where the event is.

Amy Bender, PhD: no, yeah, you can start it prior to departing. No problem. Now... ⁓

Kamal Datta: independent of okay that

Amy Bender, PhD: Now, interestingly, you know, you want to align that with which direction you're traveling. So I would but I would say so for example, if you're traveling east, you want to avoid like sleeping in too long. If that's beyond what your normal wake up time is, because remember, when you're traveling east, you want to wake up early. However,

Kamal Datta: Right. Okay. Mmm. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: I've had numerous, or I mean a few opportunities to travel internationally. And I had one situation where I traveled to, I was traveling to Switzerland. So I was traveling east and I did all of the fancy things that you could do. I... I woke up early, I went to bed early, I trained early in the morning. ⁓ I adjusted my meal times earlier and I adjusted the training, like I said. ⁓ Even had caffeine early in the morning. And that trip, I had a lot of jet lag, which was interesting to me, ⁓ versus a trip when I went to Greece.

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: where I wasn't as fancy with all of my techniques, but I said, okay, this time around, I'm gonna try and get as much sleep as possible. And I looked at kind of my wearable metrics and I ended up averaging about a half hour more in the two weeks leading up to that trip when I went to Greece versus the trip where I went to Switzerland. And the jet lag, I barely had any jet lag at all. No.

Kamal Datta: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: I did do a few things like try and go to bed early, wake up early, but I wasn't as religious with the different components that I was doing as when I went to Switzerland. And I ended up having way less jet lag when I went to Greece. So I would say that more sleep trumps doing all of these fancy little techniques when it comes to trying to shift your circadian rhythm.

Kamal Datta: Thank you, thank you. Is there a best technique to adjust to a new time zone or adjust your socket in rhythm? Are there any tips that you would recommend? Light? Okay.

Amy Bender, PhD: Light. Light is the strongest zeitgeiber, so time giver for our circadian rhythm. So if you have to prioritize one, I would prioritize light. So light in the morning when going east and then blocking light at night. So you could wear sunglasses, you could dim your lights in your house, you could wear blue light blocking glasses.

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: and ⁓ those would be ways that you could try and block light at night in the two to three hours before bedtime.

Kamal Datta: interesting. Definitely I need to give some of them a try. ⁓ One of the things that I think you have done enough work, this concept of cognitive shuffling, which is to get a better quality sleep. ⁓ I'm just curious, what does it mean? And maybe one or two tips that you want to share. How can someone actually leverage this technique?

Amy Bender, PhD: Well, one of the things we haven't really talked about is the importance of a bedtime routine, a pre-sleep routine, things to implement prior to bed because a lot of runners and just athletes in general can have a busy brain. They can have racing thoughts prior to bedtime. And so there needs to be some amount of time, you know, maybe at least a minimum of 30 minutes.

Kamal Datta: Sure.

Amy Bender, PhD: prior to going to sleep to help land the plane. You know, don't just like, you know, land the plane very abruptly. It takes time to kind of land the plane. And so having, ⁓ taking a warm bath or shower prior to bedtime helps kind of reduce temperature before sleep.

Kamal Datta: Right.

Amy Bender, PhD: So taking a warm bath or shower in the hour before, maybe 90 minutes before bedtime is something you can implement into your pre-sleep routine. And then also just doing relaxing activities, putting electronic devices away, maybe doing light stretching, boring activities or journaling, for example. And then once you're ready for sleep, the cognitive shuffle is something people can do to kind of preoccupy your mind and not make it so that you're worried about going to sleep. And it's a way to just just preoccupy your mind slightly as well as simulate what your brain does when you fall asleep. And so you can do the animal alphabet. That's where you go through the letters of the alphabet and you imagine an animal. for each of those letters. So A, anteater, B, bear, C, cat, for example. And you're imagining those objects in your mind, which helps simulate what your brain does when you fall asleep. You can do the color shuffle. So think of a color like red and imagine anything that is red, strawberry, raspberry, could even just be like a red shirt, red pants. ⁓ And so that's a way for people to just preoccupy your mind. And so those, yeah, those are the two or if you want another one, I can give you another one as well. ⁓ Thinking of a word like bedtime and imagining all the objects with that first letter. So ball, baby, bus, banana.

Kamal Datta: Sure.

Amy Bender, PhD: Moving on to the next letter, E, eagle, egg, ear. And so yeah, these are just little techniques that you can do if you're having troubles falling asleep, and also if you wake up in the middle of the night. So having a middle of the night routine, and I recommend a breathing technique, anything where you're breathing out longer than you're breathing in. helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, that relaxation system. So you could do snake breathing where you breathe in and then hiss out like a snake, which obviously if you're doing that, you're breathing out longer than you're breathing in. You're exhaling longer than you're inhaling. Or some people do the four, seven, eight breathing where you

Kamal Datta: okay.

Amy Bender, PhD: Breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds and breathe out for eight seconds. ⁓ And then I would follow that with a cognitive technique like I mentioned, the animal alphabet, the color shuffle, the cognitive shuffle with the word. ⁓ And then if this is the middle of the night or even at the beginning of the night and you're still not asleep, I would get up out of bed. and do a relaxing activity and only return back to bed when you're sleepy. Because you don't want to start associating your bed with being wide awake ⁓ and laying there for hours and hours at a time while being awake. You want to, for the most part, when you're in bed, you know, be asleep as much as possible. So yeah, those are just some things people can incorporate. starting with the warm bath or shower, then doing a relaxing activity, and then doing some breathing technique as well as more of that cognitive technique. And then again, if you're in, don't stare at the clock, but if you've been in bed for approximately 20 minutes or more, then you can get up out of bed and only return back to bed when you're sleepy.

Kamal Datta: So I'm curious about the relaxing activity. I woke up at middle of the night and somehow I'm not falling asleep. You're recommending to do some relaxing activity. What would be an example of that?

Amy Bender, PhD: ⁓ you could take a bath, you could do some stretching, you could organize your bookshelf alphabetically. ⁓ You could fold laundry. Yeah, anything. Not reaching for that phone. ⁓ where, you know, yeah, try not to reach for that phone where both the light from the phone

Kamal Datta: Okay. Yeah, that's I was getting to. Okay. It's too late to bring. Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: as well as what you're looking at can be stimulating.

Kamal Datta: Last question, Amy, before we go to our rapid fire round. ⁓ Is there any correlation between my sleep quality or how much sleep I got and an injury that I may potentially get?

Amy Bender, PhD: There, that research is very mixed. So there are some studies that show that less sleep is associated with injury. There was one study actually in adolescent soccer athletes where they found that it was like a 1.8 times higher risk of injury if these athletes weren't getting, you know,

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: seven hours of sleep. So there is some research to back that up. There's also been some research in ⁓ military populations where they if they're not getting enough sleep, they're more likely to have ⁓ injury as well. ⁓ But other other research has found, you know, not as good of a correlation or not as

Kamal Datta: I see.

Amy Bender, PhD: Not even a relationship, some studies have found, but I would say in general, I think the thought is that ⁓ less sleep or poor quality sleep leads to a higher risk of injury.

Kamal Datta: I see. Yeah. Sometimes I blame it on like I was running New York City Marathon this year and I got a cramp at mile 16 and I was thinking out loud, did I have a good sleep? ⁓ it must be my sleep. I didn't have a good sleep the night before. So ⁓ I'm sure there are lot of factors. When I went to the medical tent, they're like, yeah, you need to take this salt. OK, it will go away. And it went away because I was... May not be the only reason that caused that cramp, muscle cramp, but it is a US Seg, it's a mixed output that potentially may lead to injury. If you are going to some high, you the race or any other high, very active activity that you're doing, performance or race.

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes, I would say, I would say, for example, if you got good sleep leading into that competition and ⁓ and then you had a poor night's sleep, maybe that could have potentially maybe it's not related to the sleep in general, it would be my thought. ⁓ But I think, yeah, I think

Kamal Datta: Yeah.

Amy Bender, PhD: It's kind of known that you probably won't get a good night's sleep prior to the race. And so if you can kind of bank sleep leading into that, that you could reduce your risk for injury.

Kamal Datta: That's a great tip and I am absolutely going to use it for my next race because I think it's a fascinating idea and I wish I knew it before That but definitely going to use it All right, Amy. Let's go to our last round. I call it the rapid fire round. I'll throw out a couple of Cautions and whatever comes to your mind. You can go from there. I got a couple of them obviously related to First one the science behind the 20 minute caffeine kick-nap.

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes, we call that the or I call that and I don't know who coined this but ⁓ the nappuccino.

Kamal Datta: Yeah, okay

Amy Bender, PhD: ⁓ I think, I think that the Nappuccino can be a good thing. I probably, of course, you don't want to time the caffeine too late because then it can impact your ability to fall asleep that night. But I think potentially like a black tea prior to a nap, a green tea, you know, like a little bit of caffeine wouldn't necessarily hinder your ability to fall asleep at night. ⁓ but the thought there is that

Kamal Datta: Mm-hmm.

Amy Bender, PhD: This caffeine takes about 15 minutes to get kind of into your system and help you with your alertness. And so by the time you're waking up from that 20 minute nap, that you'll be more alert. There is some truth to that, I would say.

Kamal Datta: Thank you for explaining Napa Chinai. I was very fascinated with this term. ⁓ Next one. One glass of wine to relax before bed. Helpful or a recovery killer?

Amy Bender, PhD: Ooh, harmful, harmful for sure. ⁓ It helps you in your ability to fall asleep, but it actually disturbs your sleep more because, you know, as it's being metabolized, you are waking up more, you may have more sleep apnea because of alcohol, so stopping breathing during the middle of the night. And so you want to time that alcohol earlier. maybe with dinner to allow it to metabolize. Definitely don't recommend a night cap right before sleep.

Kamal Datta: Thank you. That's definitely great advice for sure. ⁓ Next one, it's on the gear. Eye mask, earplugs, or weighted blanket? Which one is the best $20 investment?

Amy Bender, PhD: Ooh, I like, I like eye mask. I think there's, for me personally, there's times where, well, I don't, I don't have a weighted blanket. I know there is a little bit of research depending on the person that that can be beneficial if someone has anxiety, for example, that a weighted blanket can be helpful. ⁓ But blocking out light, remember, and even there's actually devices out there where they have an eye mask. that sends a very small light pulse to help you adjust to jet lag earlier. And so even the smallest amount of light, and this is with your eyes closed, and this device is still advancing or delaying your circadian rhythm. ⁓ So I think eye mask would be the most important to try and block out light ⁓ and then earplugs. But I mean, it really depends on Are you in a noisy environment? Maybe the earplugs might be more important if you have blackout blinds. But for me, I would say I can't live without my eye mask.

Kamal Datta: That's a great one. Thank you. Last one. What is the Goldilocks temperature for the bedroom during a peak training block?

Amy Bender, PhD: They did a little bit of research on this and I think they found it was around 66 degrees. ⁓ And so because your body temperature drops when you fall asleep and so that's why it's important to have a cool environment if you have a very high ambient temperature and we all know this based on you know when we're sleeping in the summer outside. where it's hot, like it's more difficult to fall asleep. And so we find that a dark, and quiet environment are kind of those keys for our sleep environment. And I wouldn't go too crazy on the number, but I would say, you know, making sure that it's below 72 degrees. is that optimal temperature and probably somewhere in the 60s is going to be your sweet spot.

Kamal Datta: Great, now I have another excuse to reduce my energy a little bit more. Since you recommended that one, that would be a good counter argument for the foot across why I need to have a lower temperature in the bedroom. Hopefully I'll not win that battle for sure. ⁓ Dr. Amy Bender, thank you so much for joining me today. I think it has been a master class ⁓ in winning the other 22 hours that I talked about in the beginning for the athletes or the runners. What can people find about your work?

Amy Bender, PhD: Yes, thank you Kamal for having me. It's been a fun time.

Kamal Datta: Great, any other place where people can find about your work,

Amy Bender, PhD: Well, I'm trying to be more active on social media so people can catch me on there on Instagram, TikTok. I'm also going to be doing YouTube shorts as well. So yeah, that's probably the best place right now is to kind of catch me on social media, ⁓ Amy Bender or at Sleep For Sport.

Kamal Datta: Awesome. It has been a pleasure. Thank you so much once again.

Amy Bender, PhD: Okay, thank you so