Ever caught yourself desperate to fall asleep in the middle of the night before a big meeting or event? Here are five ways the โSleep Guruโ is helping players to elevate their game.
1. Ditch the sleeping pills
Now working alongside Frank Lampard at Coventry City, Wilson says he has come to the conclusion that players who use sleeping pills are injured more often because they do not get recovery sleep.
โSleeping pills do not work,โ Wilson says. โTheyโll knock you out and give you sedation, but they wonโt give you recovery sleep, which is what footballers need.
โFour hours of normal sleep is better for recovery than eight hours of sleep from a sleeping pill. But your brain doesnโt think like this โ youโd rather have eight hours of sedation โ so our process is all about educating the players.โ
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2. Invest in quality bedding
One of the main pillars to a good nightโs sleep is quality bedding.
Wilson says: โA mattress, pillow and duvet are the three most important products a footballer owns.โ
Comfortable and supportive bedding is so significant for sleep that Wilson once sent mattress toppers and pillows to Denmark for West Hamโs away game against Viborg in the Conference League.
โThe players had complained that they had found the hotel difficult to sleep in the previous year. Some of it was psychosomatic โ we wanted them to feel like we were taking their concerns seriously.โ
3. Stop sleeping on your front
Wilson says sleeping on their stomachs is a key factor in players picking up injuries. He says while you may be able to avoid injuring your body sleeping this way at the age of 22, over time it will catch up with you.
โSleeping on your front causes all sorts of problems. It can damage your neck, shoulders, knees and hamstrings.
โIโve worked with players who have had consistent niggly injuries in these areas, and simply working on their sleep posture by moving them to side-on and adjusting their neckโs position completely solved the issue.โ
4. Create a relaxing environment
You need physical and emotional security for optimal sleep, says Wilson. While he recommends a shower before bed to drop your core temperature for the physical side, he has other methods for achieving emotional security.
โYour body is programmed to wake up in the night,โ he says. โYou need to feel safe to stop this, so we ask players to take their partnerโs aftershave or perfume with them and spray it before bed because smell makes you feel emotionally secure. It really works!
โAlso, it is important to have some audio on, as your hearing is like your alarm system and it stays awake to protect you whilst you sleep. Intense topics like true-crime podcasts do not work, but any fairly monotonous podcast you enjoy does the trick.โ
Avoiding visual stimulants before bed is also crucial. Wilson says he has previously advised teams to stop watching evening kick-offs the night before a game as it was keeping the players mentally engaged.
5. Throw away your sleep tracker and ask yourself these three questions
The Football Association kitted England with sleep-tracking wearables at last summerโs Euros โ even Portugalโs Cristiano Ronaldo was pictured wearing an Oura ring. But Wilson says the products are incredibly unreliable.
โSleep wearables are having a negative impact on football at the minute,โ he says. โThey are very inaccurate and consequently cause the players to worry about their sleep, which only makes it worse.โ
Trackers use heart rate and temperature to provide data, but as athletes usually have lower heart rates and higher body temperatures, it often skews the figures. Instead, he asks his players three questions to gauge their overall quality of sleep.
โFirstly, โhow quickly did you get to sleep?โ We want that to be between five and 30 minutes. Any shorter and youโre sleep-deprived.
โSecondly, โhow many times did you wake up in the night?โ The lower, the better, but anything more than three times and youโve had poor sleep.
โThen finally, โhow did you feel at 10am this morning?โ As that is when you should be most alert.โ
The Telegraph, London
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