According to new research out of Australia, athletes who get their beauty sleep the most consistently could also call it their ''performance sleep,'' too.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Monash University study, recently published in Current Biology, shows how crucial it is for athletes to keep tabs on their sleep cycle, and how important it is to adjust it when traveling into other time zones to compete.
The study had 20 athletes of similar age and fitness levels take endurance tests at six different points in a day. The people who were considered ''early-risers'' fared well, but peaked in the morning. While the night owls peaked in the evening.
Early types had a variation of performance of 7 percent to 10 percent — the late types varied by up to 26 percent.
The most important factor? Allowing the body to wake up naturally, the researchers claimed, saying that athletes who travel across the world could fare better in their competitions if they accounted for the time zone difference and kept their circadian rhythms regulated.
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