Throughout the years, the NBA has done a great job in limiting stress on the players' bodies, including limiting 4 games in 5 nights and the amount of back-to-backs in the season. But, teams play about 13 back-to-back games, which are 2 games in 2 nights. The NBA season is more stretched out than ever, and it continues to stretch.
But NBA players still suffer from sleep deprivation. In a typical 36 hours in which players have two games, they might be able to get 8 hours of sleep. If both games are home, they will get home about 1:30, and have to be at shoot-a-round about 10 am or so. Even if they get there at 10 exactly, with all the cortisol produced during the game, they might be able to get 5.5 hours of sleep, maximum.
If it's a road game it's even worse. If they're going far, they might only get a few hours sleep between games. Throw in mechanical dysfunction and jet lag, and it seems impossible that they would get sleep at all.
With 82 games in a little less than 6 months, most teams travel about 50,000 miles throughout the season (80467.2 kilometers for those Australian peeps). That is far enough to go around the world twice.
Over the 2018-19 NBA season, the average team played every 2.07 days, had 13.3 back-to-backs and flew the equivalent of 250 miles a day for 25 straight weeks. This year the average of back-to-backs will be at an average of 12.
"It's the dirty little secret that everybody knows about."
Hassan Whiteside, now of the Portland Trail Blazers, says sleep "could be the difference between you having a career game or playing terrible."
Some people might envy the NBA players' year, with 4+ months of no work, luxury hotels, first class on planes and endless travel, but it's no picnic. Most players are working out the entire off season to be in top shape for September training camp, which is 2 or 3 months after the NBA finals.
There is also the Olympics and the World Cup occasionally, and younger players are asked to participate in the NBA Summer League. There are also upwards of 4 preseason games a few weeks before the first regular season games, and often teams play their preseason games in Asia, so there's tons of jet lag. So with any luck, players can catch up on sleep before the season actually starts, in mid-October.
When asked if it is possible within the current NBA schedule to obtain consistent, quality sleep, Whiteside responded, "Nah. It's impossible."
Lebron James said on a podcast with author and efficiency expert Tim Ferriss: "There's nothing more important than optimal REM sleep."
Lebron shuts off all electronic devices a half hour before bed, and has an app play rain falling on leaves to help him fall asleep. James also invests about $7M a year on his physical fitness and well-being.
Sleep is such a big deal in the NBA, and all players recognize the importance. CJ McCollum and Tobias Harris aim for 9 hours of sleep each night, which requires Harris to go to bed around 8:30. Kent Bazemore sets his eyes on 7 hours of sleep, which says a lot if it is hard to reach.
Andre Iguodala told ESPN that he had sleep deprivation in the NBA for a decade, before he joined the Warriors in Silicon Valley in 2013.
Tobias Harris had a big take on sleep: "I think in a couple years, [sleep deprivation] will be an issue that's talked about, like the NFL with concussions."
It's not just the NBA. “I firmly believe that sleep and recovery are critical aspects of an effective and holistic training program,” 42 year old Tom Brady stated. “Proper sleep has helped me get to where I am today as an athlete and it is something that I continue to rely on every day."
Another 42 year old, Vince Carter, was asked his key to such a long career. Guess what he said? "Sleep. It's the No. 1 thing for me."
It's also not just in professional sports (I think Minor League baseball is the worst place to go if you want a job with sleep FYI). In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or, CDC, declared insufficient sleep to be a public health problem.
Columbia University said that keeping your bedroom at a reasonable temperature can help you sleep because a bedroom that is too hot or too cold can disrupt sleep. Lebron certainly reads, since he says he keeps his hotel rooms 68 to 70 degrees (Farenheit) when he sleeps.
Over the past 50 years, according to research conducted by Dr. Charles Czeisler, the director of sleep medicine at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, the national average sleep duration on work nights has fallen from eight and a half hours to less than seven.
You might be saying, why don't NBA players just take tons of naps all the time? Even if players are able to get naps, which are unlikely due to cortisol, naps aren't actually all that helpful.
"We have a circadian rhythm, and there are times when we have been designed to sleep and thus get optimal sleep," Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and founder and director of its Center for Human Sleep Science says. "Trying to sleep during the day results in worse sleep quantity and quality and leads to significant poor health outcomes. We know this from hundreds of studies in nighttime shift workers."
As one NBA executive notes: If a person slept four or five hours a night over an extended period of time, they'd survive. "But we're not asking our players to just be alive. We're asking them to perform at an elite level against others at an elite level.
Columbia also said that sleep deprivation is caused by poor life circumstances. If the entire NBA is sleep deprived, what does that mean?
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