Sleep gives elite athletes like Olympic marathoner Becky Wade, Washington Mystics point guard Natasha Cloud, and the NBA’s Washington Wizards an extra edge in training and performance, according to a recent piece by Amanda Loudin of the Washington Post. Sleep expert Chris Winter explains how restorative sleep correlates with an athlete’s longevity, citing research done by Major League Baseball on the subject.
A 2013 study, for instance, piggybacked on early Major League Baseball research to look into the relationship between fatigue and career longevity in the league. It found that the more tired players were — on a self-reported sleepiness scale — the less likely they were to still be in the league at the three-year follow-up point.