Olympic Athletes and Sleep, Preparing for Gold During the 2024 Paris Olympics

Sleep Challenges Olympic Athletes Face 

Sleep is necessary for all of us, but for Olympic athletes taxing their bodies to the max, it’s especially important to allow their brains to recharge and their bodies to rest.² Not sleeping well or long enough can slow down muscle repair, which occurs during sleep. It can also affect judgment and mood.

Olympians face several unique circumstances that can make it tough to get crucial sleep.

1. Jet Lag Management 

Jet lag occurs after traveling across more than three time zones, with symptoms that can include insomnia, fatigue, and headaches, among others.³ Some Olympians are lucky enough to compete in the same timezone they live in while others face upwards of a 12-hour time difference, meaning their sleep cycles are suddenly reversed. While completely preventing jet lag isn’t always possible, Olympic athletes take strides to alleviate the worst of it.

Still, jetlag doesn’t stop Olympic athletes from waking up at 4:30 a.m. for practice. Team Ireland artistic gymnast Rhys McClenaghan captured his trials and tribulations with jetlag on a vlog about his travel to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games.¹ His rigid sleep schedule included sleeping on the first half of his flight to Japan to introduce his body to the new timezone, followed by wearing glasses with red-hued lenses to filter out blue light, which can disrupt sleep.⁴

2. New Sleep Environment 

Olympians may be the world’s greatest athletes, but like the rest of us, they tend to sleep best in their own beds. Living at the Olympic Village can come with environmental disruptions like new noise, light pollution, and even a room temperature that just doesn’t feel comfortable enough for sleep. 

The Olympic Village did away with air conditioning this year, replacing it with a water-cooling system located underneath the village to help minimize the Olympics’ impact on climate change.

Pair that with the Olympic Village’s environmentally-conscious cardboard beds, which have returned for the Paris event, and Olympians may be in for potentially rough sleep.⁵

3. Athletic Performance Anxiety

Stress has a significant impact on sleep, yet Olympic athletes about to partake in the biggest competition of their lives often find themselves running on autopilot in a state of adrenaline rather than letting athletic performance anxiety take hold.¹

A new initiative launched by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) found that 49 percent of Olympic athletes can be categorized as poor sleepers, which was linked with a higher stress state.⁶ “Sleep is their number-one concern,” said Dr. Jessica Bartley, the USOPC’s Senior Director of Psychological Services. “They ask us, ‘How do I get enough sleep to perform at my best?’ Sleep is one of the indicators and is often highly correlated with mental health concerns.”

4. Change in Diet

Competing in another country may come with a change in diet or foods that are available. This, combined with a potentially new eating routine or schedule, and Olympic athletes may find their sleep thrown off course. For instance, consuming spicy or high-fat and high-protein foods can disrupt sleep, as these foods can cause heartburn and/or take a long time to digest.⁷

The Sleep Habits of Olympians 

Olympian sleep habits are often as rigorous as the games they partake in. In fact, many Olympians are trained to compete on little to no sleep, such as a Norwegian alpine ski team who underwent pre-season training that included learning how to perform despite extreme sleep deprivation.¹

“Coach Luke [Carson, National Gymnastics Coach for Ireland] always says he should be able to wake me up in the middle of the night and I should be able to do a routine straight away and I proved to myself I could do that today,” McClenaghan said in his 2020 Tokyo vlog. “I actually probably only slept two hours because of the buzz and the excitement and adrenaline you have… so I just rested my eyes and accepted that that was going to be that,” added silver medalist Bryony Page, a trampolinist who competed at the Rio 2016 Olympics.¹

However, these two Olympic athletes aren’t alone. A 2024 study of Team USA athletes found that 632 team members, or just over 39 percent, reported poor sleep.⁸ Team sport athletes were hit the hardest, noting earlier wake times than individual sport athletes.

Sleep and Athletic Performance 

• According to research from Columbia University, poor sleep is linked to craving foods bad for heart health, such as those high in saturated fats and sugar.⁹   

• A study on collegiate men’s basketball players found that sleeping at least 10 hours a night resulted in faster mid-court and full-court running sprints.¹⁰

• Sleeping 10 hours a night resulted in better reaction times off the diving block and quicker turn times among swimmers.¹¹

• Tennis players saw their serve accuracy improve after sleeping nine hours at night.¹² 

• Sleep deprivation is linked to worsened high-cognition motor skills required by athletes such as handball goalkeepers and tennis players.¹³

Learn more: Athletes and Sleep

Conclusion

Olympians face many sleep challenges, like jet lag, unfamiliar sleep environments, performance anxiety, and a change in diet. Yet despite the hurdles, Olympic athletes continue to strive for the win, and many steps are being taken to improve sleep amongst these athletes.