{"id":79474,"date":"2026-02-22T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=79474"},"modified":"2026-02-21T19:11:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T02:11:59","slug":"five-sleep-habits-to-steal-from-winter-olympians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/five-sleep-habits-to-steal-from-winter-olympians\/","title":{"rendered":"Five sleep habits to steal from winter olympians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Five<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tess Johnson has always had trouble sleeping the night before a competition. The 25-year-old, who will be representing Team U.S.A. at the Olympics this month, competes in moguls skiing \u2014 a discipline that involves making very tight turns down bumpy runs and performing two acrobatic jumps on the way down. In other words, there is little room for error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll find myself waking up in the middle of the night, just kind of ruminating,\u201d Ms. Johnson said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s something in my skiing, or the result.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intense training, busy travel schedules and the pressure of competition can all wreak havoc on elite athletes\u2019 sleep. In a 2024 study of 1,603 Team U.S.A. athletes, nearly 40 percent of them reported poor sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sleep plays a role in athletic performance, but the pressure to optimize sleep can backfire. For that reason, Emily Clark, a psychologist for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee who frequently advises athletes on sleep, tells them to aim for consistency, not perfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVigilance around sleep is counterproductive to sleep,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how sleep experts who work with Olympians help them rest better. You don\u2019t need to be an elite athlete to benefit from their advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re sleeping somewhere new, make the place your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Olympic Village can be a particularly difficult sleep environment, with tight quarters and notoriously uncomfortable beds. Ms. Johnson, who competed at the Games in 2018, recalls the \u201cpaper-thin\u201d walls in Pyeongchang, South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI could totally hear people above me, under me, next to me,\u201d Ms. Johnson said. She fell asleep by listening to white noise on noise-canceling headphones. Now she rarely travels without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Kern, a Team U.S.A. cross-country skier, regularly travels with her own pillow and a mini humidifier to provide a measure of constancy during winter race season, where she will typically stay in a different hotel every week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing your sleep environment \u2014 ideally to make your space dark, quiet and cool \u2014 is an essential component of good sleep hygiene, Dr. Clark said. The goal is to control what you can and accept that some sleep disruptions are inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Develop a calming evening routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Kern is also prone to late-night rumination \u2014 and the stakes of Olympic competition don\u2019t help. \u201cSometimes, after a race, I\u2019ll replay the race in my head and get in this cycle,\u201d she said. To refocus her mind, she imagines she is in bed at home, pictures a blank space or practices box breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rhythmic breathing exercises are one way to help you relax and send a signal to your sympathetic nervous system that it\u2019s time to wind down, the experts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to create a protected time for the body to be prepared for sleep,\u201d Dr. Clark said. You could take a warm shower, listen to calming music or journal, she said. Dr. Clark recommends avoiding activities that may get you worked up before bed \u2014 like watching dramatic TV shows or scrolling on your phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wake up at a consistent time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sleep consistency, or sticking to a relatively regular bedtime and wake-up time, has been linked to better health. But going to bed at a particular hour can be challenging at the Games, especially for athletes competing in evening events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Doorley, another psychologist for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, tells athletes to focus instead on keeping their wake-up time stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waking up at roughly the same time every morning helps establish your circadian rhythm, especially if you get a dose of natural light. If natural light is not an option, Dr. Clark said, exercise and eating are the next best ways to reset your internal clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t obsess over your sleep score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While sleep tracking can have some benefits, Dr. Doorley said, it can also lead to \u201cpressure and perfectionism.\u201d He has seen athletes compare sleep scores from their devices (a rating that\u2019s typically based on sleep quality and duration) and even compete with one another. \u201cSometimes, with more knowledge, comes almost the curse of knowledge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Johnson experimented with sleep trackers for a while, but said the experience of \u201cwaking up and being told I slept poorly when actually I felt fine\u201d wasn\u2019t worth the stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Kern tracks her sleep with a device and generally finds it useful, but she makes a point not to check her sleep scores on race weekends so she doesn\u2019t fixate on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember your body is resilient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S.O.P.C.\u2019s sleep guidelines note that, while it\u2019s important for athletes to get consistent sleep, \u201cone night of poor sleep is rarely enough to derail your performance when you have adrenaline on your side and good sleep banked from prior nights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Doorley advises athletes to try to tap into a \u201cchildlike relationship to sleep,\u201d or sleeping when you\u2019re tired and trying not to overthink it. \u201cLetting go is essential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Johnson agreed: \u201cThat is something I\u2019ve had to learn over my years. I\u2019ve gotten some of my best results on, like, four hours of sleep, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n