Union Bordeaux-Bègles Congolese winger Madosh Tambwe made an astonishing confession last month in The Team, on his post-match habits in the Top 14: “The doctor offers us sleeping pills, because with muscle pain, it can be difficult to sleep. I take it because with the adrenaline of the game and my hyperactive mind, it’s impossible for me to fall asleep before 5 am. The scene is set: do professional athletes all experience such a hassle to recover from their efforts in the evening? Sports and sleep doctor, who intervenes in particular with the XV of France, at the request of coach Fabien Galthié, François Duforez explains to us that Madosh Tambwe undoubtedly uses, like many athletes, “melatonin”, known as the sleep hormone.
“Personally, I do not prescribe pills of this kind and I am not in favor of institutionalizing them, specifies François Duforez. But apart from anxiolytics, which have side effects on reaction times and can be addictive, these can be interesting. There’s a placebo side to it that can reassure gamers, and pills made from the herb valerian have proven sleep benefits, much like melatonin. » It is therefore important not to take a few hours before a quarter-final of Roland-Garros (hello Stefanos Tsitsipas).
Average sleep around 3:30 or 4 a.m.
François Duforez, who also collaborates with the French Basketball and Handball Federations, after having rubbed shoulders with AS Monaco footballers, defines his mission as follows: “In a collective framework, individual solutions have to be found, and it almost looks like to a police investigation to understand how to improve the sleep of these athletes. According to athletes and sleep specialists, it even sounds like an impossible mission on the nights following a major sporting event.
I was able to talk with around 200 professional players, and when they play a match in the evening, they only fall asleep on average around 3:30 or 4 a.m., summarizes François Duforez. And again, that’s without counting on the away matches with a return flight at night. »
We even come to mind the recent titanic performance of Gaël Monfils against Sebastian Baez, in the first round of Roland-Garros (7-5 in the 5th set after being down 0-4). 3:47 a.m. of a match concluded at 12:18 a.m. with Central in a trance, a press conference wrapped up at 1:50 a.m., and a presence nine hours later, at the edge of the Simonne-Mathieu court, to support his wife Elina Svitolina, normal… But updated apart from an example as extreme as the feat of “La Monf”, why does it systematically take so long to fall asleep, even after a soporific 0-0 in a football match without much history in the middle of the season?
Marion Delespierre debriefs her world title at 4 a.m.
“Physical expenditure leads to a significant rise in body temperature, and it must drop to be able to sleep,” explains François Duforez. Similarly, emotions related to athletic performance drive dopamine, endorphin, and adrenaline. Euphoric after her first long trail world champion title (87 km and 6,500 m of elevation gain), on June 9 in Innsbruck, Marion Delespierre only managed to sleep three hours in the two nights that followed in Austria “I felt joint and muscle pain all over, cerebral hyperexcitability, and a spike in cortisol in the middle of the night.”
You will have guessed it at the mention of this physical or emotional stress hormone, the 36-year-old Lyonnaise is also a sports doctor. “I was exhausted but I kept thinking about this victory, she continues. We even found ourselves chatting about the race in our room at 4 a.m. with my teammate in the France team Audrey Tanguy. »
Stadium lights also make it harder to sleep
The amateur ultra-trailer Aurélien Sanchez made history on March 17 by becoming the first French finisher of the mythical Barkley (200 km and 20,000 m of D+ in 58h23, with a single 15-minute nap in the middle) , he did not have the same sleep problem as Marion Delespierre. “I was so tired that I immediately slept soundly,” recalls this 32-year-old engineer from Toulouse. I had a feeling of jet lag. But my head wasn’t really out of the race and I woke up with a start because I still thought I was in the fifth loop of the Barkley. »
Far from the darkness of the chilling Frozen Head park (Tennessee) where Aurélien Sanchez revealed himself to the world, another factor contributes to making it difficult for professional players to fall asleep according to François Duforez: “Let’s not forget that in a stadium, they undergo 10,000 lux of light for two hours, which blocks the secretion of melatonin, the natural hormone that regulates sleep and needs darkness”.
Junk food specific to rugby, “a sport of excess”
Add to that some confusing habits of players after a game, like Madosh Tambwe (again him): “There, it’s total relaxation: I swallow four cheeseburgers, two boxes of spicy chicken tenders, two wraps, a King Burger. If I’m still hungry, I sometimes order myself an Uber Eats ”. How all this junk food complicate an athlete’s recovery at all? “That is a bit specific to rugby, which is a sport of excess, both for the consumption of alcohol and food after matches, smiles François Duforez. If you eat too much, the necessary digestion raises the body temperature and therefore delays the time of falling asleep. »
What solutions to limit breakage, except to avoid robbing a fast food restaurant? It is obviously advisable to avoid the use of screens, especially if it is to review your match over and over, which continues to stimulate the brain. “Cryotherapy and baths at 10°C have clear effects on body temperature,” notes François Duforez. The physician member of the European Sleep Center also advises clubs and federations to avoid scrubbing after a match, which has long been the norm in France.
“Higher risk of muscle injury”
“I never fully understood their usefulness,” he admits. The best recovery is sleep. For a professional player, falling asleep late is not necessarily a problem if the organization adapts and allows him to meet his sleep debt the next morning. And if necessary also with naps, which allow you to recover, even if you don’t fall asleep deeply. “The consequences of a “sleep debt” can be fatal, between “greater risks of muscle injuries, a less efficient immune system and behavioral disorders”.
This is why a champion like Novak Djokovic has poured out, in the middle of a victorious fortnight at Roland-Garros, the importance he attaches to his sleep, especially during a major tournament: “I try to have these eight or nine hours of good sleep a night, especially if I do heavy physical exertion during the day. It’s my routine, with short naps and meditation, and it helps me a lot to feel great, fresh.
Never without my pillow
Like Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, tricolor swimming phenomenon Léon Marchand (21) has just confided this month that he uses “filtering glasses blue light sun to sleep better. For his part, the adventurer Rémi Camus, who on Tuesday completed his enormous challenge of 180 km swimming between Calvi and Monaco (in thirteen days), deciphers the importance of sleep for this kind of project.
I try to have the same sleeping rhythm. I gradually understood how essential it was to have a clear mind through restful sleep. Since my many survival courses, I know how to fall asleep in just ten seconds. I clear my head, I let go and I focus on breathing, thanks to sophrology exercises, to avoid dwelling on the difficulties of the day. »
Similarly, Marion Delespierre uses “body scans [une technique de méditation reconnue] and cardiac coherence” to try to facilitate his sleep. François Duforez adds to these habits: “You have to take a rhythm of 12 to 14 breaths per minute to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and normalize the heart rate”. The sleep doctor also advises athletes to find their own “falling asleep techniques and rituals”.
“I spoke with a player who was watching videos of waves on his tablet in bed, and it put him to sleep in five minutes,” he says. Marion Delespierre even tells us that some trail runners have got into the habit of systematically taking their home pillow to competitions. We touch here on the dimension of superstition, as inherent in high-level sport as mini-nights.