{"id":192049,"date":"2023-02-16T05:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=192049"},"modified":"2023-02-15T21:49:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T21:49:21","slug":"sleep-quality-may-be-more-important-than-duration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2023\/02\/16\/sleep-quality-may-be-more-important-than-duration\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep Quality May Be More Important Than Duration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Studies show that poor sleep increases your risk of getting ill. But what exactly does it mean to sleep poorly? Is it enough to get 7 hours of sleep a night or is the quality of your sleep the thing to focus on? A new study shines some light on that question.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Athletes often struggle with sleep<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Getting good sleep as an athlete is hard. Early sessions steal the morning hours in bed and late evening training makes it harder to fall asleep. Athletes, of course, have to juggle all of the other obligations and responsibilities on top of exercise too. If there\u2019s too much to do, sleep is usually the thing that gives. As if the time pressure wasn\u2019t enough, hard training itself can create extra stress that impacts sleep. Unfortunately, research shows that adults who habitually get fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night are more susceptible to respiratory infections.<\/p>\n

Sleep affects your immune health<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There\u2019s nothing worse than missing a week of training because of an illness. That\u2019s why researchers at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK decided to investigate the relationship between sleep and immune health. They studied more than 1,300 army recruits who went through a 12-week training programme. The recruits were asked about their sleep habits before they joined the training and the researchers then divided them into two groups.<\/p>\n