There is an age-old tradition in sports: No sex before a big game.
Nick Littlehales calls this unspoken rule “absolute crap”.
Littlehales is a former golf pro and bedding industry man who is now a sleep adviser. Some of his pronouncements may sound over the top, but his clients include football and cycling teams, corporations, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who has returned to Manchester United after glorious chapters with Real Madrid and Juventus.
Littlehales told The Guardian in an interview once that sex the night before a big competition is okay, but the athlete must sleep alone after the act. Cuddling up can wait.
If at all a player has to share his bed, several other factors need to be considered, such as the size of the bed, whether the partner is a restless sleeper and even what the dominant hand of the athlete is.
Littlehales believes it is also important for a sportsperson to know their chronotype – that is whether they are a morning or night person.
“If you don’t identify what that chronotype is, you become an in-betweener,” he told Guardian. This can be key for athletes as they often have night matches. Some are born with an ability to function at a high level well into the night, others need to adapt, said the sleep guru.
Littlehales first got the ear of Manchester United’s legendary boss Alex Ferguson when he helped United defender Gary Pallister ease his back injuries by changing his sleeping arrangements.
“You can never cure a lower back problem like that but we saw some significant improvements,” he said, “so that triggered (United’s view) that maybe there’s something more in this (sleep analysis).”
Soon, Arsene Wenger of Arsenal also sought him out. (Don’t know if Wenger took tips so that he could somehow tamper with Jose Mourinho’s sleep.)
Littlehales is a stickler about sleeping arrangements. It would be impossible for a common man to heed each of his instructions. But wealthy sports organisations and top athletes, such as Ronaldo, have the means to arrange everything just so – right temperature, freshly washed linen every day, the right pillows and angles and so on.
For example, Littlehales once advised Tour de France teams to see to it that riders had seven sets of white linen. These were to be washed, dried and replaced each night to give the rider a sense of calm and consistency. Filters were kept over air-conditioning vents to remove allergens from the room. Athletes slept wearing nasal strips to open their airways and avoid mouth-breathing.
Before Euro 2004, the FA, English football’s ruling body, hired Littlehales to travel ahead of the national squad to rejig team hotel rooms so that they were conducive to ideal rest and recovery.
“If they (accommodations) don’t tick the boxes, I’m bringing my own (equipment) or we’ll try another hotel,” Littlehales said.
As for Ronaldo, Littlehales advised him to take five snoozes a day. He refuses to call them snoozes or naps, though.
"It's not a nap," Littlehales once said. "It's not for old people watching TV. It's not for snoozers and losers. It's a way to sleep less, to improve your recovery from it. Don't waste valuable time doing it, but zone out at the right time doing it, and you can get a real handle on it."
But even the sleep guru, with all his knowledge and attention to detail, has not been able to control the use of the mobile phone and video games, the modern man’s obstacles to a good night’s rest. He says even professional athletes cannot resist the lure of unwinding with screens.
“Our exposure to artificial light has just gone through the roof,” Littlehales told The Guardian. “That light is so intense, and combined with everything else like the TVs, it’s all about wake, not sleep … we’re just letting it infiltrate our lives without any control.”
The moral of the story is switch the screen off, and dream away like Ronaldo.
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