Sleep hygiene: Tips, advice & secrets on improving sleep from athletes

According to the NHS, adults require between seven and nine hours of sleep per night.

Given the changeable schedules athletes in elite sports are subject to, sticking to a strict sleep routine can be very difficult.

That means maintaining as much consistency as possible, even when on the road, can have a huge benefit.

Remi Mobed, a physiotherapist with an expertise in sleep who has worked with the England men’s national teams in football and rugby, supports the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team.

He says their approach is the “gold standard” for managing sleep in elite-level sport.

“In a group stage of a Tour de France, the cyclists are going to be in approximately 20 different hotels over the course of 22 days,” he says.

“Each of those cyclists has their own dehumidifier, their own mattress, their own duvet and their own pillow that come as a travel pack. The team travels with that and the soigneur goes ahead and prepares the athlete’s room for them prior to arrival, every day for 22 days.

“The reality for other team sports is to do the basics as well as you can, like getting the athletes to travel with an eye mask and their own pillow from home.”