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| Home >> Top Tips >> TopTip2020 #21 - Sleep Well! - by Madhavan Thirumalai, USA |
TopTips 2020 #21 Sleep Well!
by Madhavan Thirumalai, USA
Madhavan Thirumalai is our super tall and very fast RS Aero 9 sailor from the northeast USA. Often overlooked, good sleep is vital. Here are his insights in how to help achieve that;
'Sleep Well!
Get to big regattas early. Your body is under more stress than you may realize when you are traveling. In addition to the unfamiliar and possibly less than perfectly comfortable lodgings and not great food, the big problem at least early in the regatta is poor sleep. And if you are traveling across timezones the problem is even more acute.
Most people sleep badly in a new location. This is well understood in human sleep research, so much so that researchers have a term for it: “first-night effect”. The belief is that your brain is still monitoring the environment and you are more likely to wake up to unusual sounds. This is probably a Darwinian thing - we are animals with the need to protect ourselves when in a new environment and the body's solution is to not be completely asleep so as to be able to sense danger. Not a useful thing in your average hotel room today but your amygdala doesn’t know that. And like it or not, your performance drops dramatically when you don't sleep well especially in breeze.
So probably get to a regatta a day or two early and get used to the place and all. Perhaps bring some of your own things from home so it doesn’t feel so unfamiliar but that's hard when you are traveling. And it is actually a good idea to stock up on sleep in the week before the regatta.
Best Wishes, Madhavan '
*Amygdala - the almond shaped set of neurons located deep in the brain's medial temporal lobe. Shown to play a key role in the processing of emotions. Who knew?
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14/04/2020 00:11:00
Peter Barton
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