Dr Matt Pain, Sport Psychologist at St George’s Park, offers expert tips for the problem that keeps footballers awake at night.
Whether you’re a manager or a player, taking thoughts about the game to bed with you can make it hard to get a good night’s sleep. The pressure of media scrutiny and the insecure nature of sport make post– match insomnia a common occurrence. The good news is, there are some simple steps to help you sleep more easily…
“You do take the pressure home. I go to bed thinking about it and get up thinking about it.”
Chris Hughton, Manager Norwich City FC.
1 - Get to bed around the same time every night. Make it late enough so that you naturally feel tired and try not to break this routine even at weekends. The demands of evening games, away fixtures and travel might make this impossible at times, but do your best to ‘control the controllables’.
2 - If you need to catch up on sleep it’s far better to have a post-lunch or post-training nap (30 mins maximum) rather than an artificially early night.
3 - Your bedroom should be associated with sleep (i.e. no TV, internet, reading, etc) so that just getting into bed acts as a trigger for you to quickly drop off. Make it as dark and quiet as possible so you remain undisturbed by external factors.
4 - Eating before bed can help promote sleep, especially after intense exercise. When you pair tryptophan-containing foods with carbohydrates it can help calm the brain and allow you to sleep better. Try a turkey sandwich and experiment to find your best sleep snack.
5 - Avoid caffeine and other stimulants after midday and avoid sleeping pills or alcohol – these may help you to feel more relaxed but will actually reduce your sleep quality.
“Chewing over performances to mentally ‘fix’ mistakes is counter-productive to sleep”
6 - Wind down naturally using slow breathing (around six per minute is optimal). Count the breaths in and out while relaxing muscles in your feet, calves, thighs, chest, hands, arms, shoulders, neck and face. This routine engages both mind and body and prevents recurring thoughts. If you wake up in the night and find it hard to get back to sleep, repeat the routine.
7 - Have a rule that you won’t ‘listen’ to or indulge your thoughts once you’re in bed. It’s tempting to chew over performances and mentally ‘fix’ mistakes but it’s counter- productive to sleep. Thinking done when tired at night time is often overly negative, unrealistic and irrational so shouldn’t be taken seriously. Analyse the match and get all thoughts out of your head by writing them down well before going to bed.
8 - Research shows that performance isn’t adversely affected by a single night’s poor sleep, so don’t lie in bed worrying even further about not sleeping. It’s also common to underestimate how long we actually sleep for, so if you’re in bed and in a restful state be content that you’ll cope fine the next day.
Implementing these steps should help you sleep more easily but if insomnia is a persistent problem it may be tied to deeper thinking patterns that can require help to unpick.
Consider talking to a sport psychologist or contact matthew.pain@thefa.com.
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