Working out and following a diet seem like obvious habits to pick up when trying to improve your fitness level or if you want to be the best athlete you can be. Many people don’t give the quality or quantity of sleep they get a second thought, but improving this aspect of your life might give you the boost you’re looking for to take your fitness to the next level.

While sleeping isn’t as sexy as resistance training or implementing a hardcore diet plan, getting enough sleep is know to be a major factor in the recovery process for athletes and exercisers alike. While the average recommended time spent sleeping for the general public is 6-8 hours per night, athletes can see improved performance by clocking in for bed for 9-10+ hours per night (PMID: 2173114). It’s also neat to note that when asked, athletes’ mood and general fatigue improved by as much as 80%. If you’re looking to make a big impact in a competitive setting it seems to be a really good idea to get just a little more sleep than normal.

Clocking in that many hours of sleep might be near impossible for some people if you live with a busy schedule, but fear not the next best thing you can do is improve your sleep quality by creating a bulletproof bedtime routine. The only downside to this is that it can’t be a one off (PMID: 27031035), it has to be a routine that you do consecutively night to night in order to reap the rewards. Some of the things you can do:

  1. Keep your room dark and quiet.
  2. Turn off screens 30 minutes before bed.
  3. Use your bedroom for sleep and not much else.
  4. Try to go to sleep and wake up around the same time.
  5. Don’t nap much or at all during the day
  6. Keep the room cool but not cold

Just a quick note on napping. I would say avoid doing it because while it might be beneficial if you’re working out twice in a day, it can negatively affect your night time sleep habits which will most likely have a negative effect on your performance.

Be sure that you are thinking about your sleep when you think about your overall fitness routine. The impact of sleep can be extremely useful getting you to push through what you currently think is your best.