Everybody knows that sleep is important for staying healthy, keeping a clear head, and performing at your peak.
But did you know that something called “sleep spindles” can slash the time that it takes to improve as a shooter?
And literally help you sleep your way to success?
I bet you can remember a time where you practiced a skill, got your technique dialed in, but then performed just as bad or worse a day or two later…as if you didn’t practice at all. It could have been shooting, golf, or any other skill.
A lot of times, this can happen because of a lack of sleep spindles.
Let’s start of with what sleep spindles are.
I’m going to paint a picture rather than be technically correct. If you have a better way of explaining it, please do so below.
Sleep spindles are a burst of brain activity that happen when you sleep.
I learned about them from sleep researcher Dr. James Maas. Dr. Maas was the guy who coined the phrase “power nap” about 40 years ago. He consults for pro teams, Olympic teams, division 1 teams, and Fortune 500 companies.
Part of what is going on during this activity is that a special form of calcium is injected into the motor cortex. This calcium helps turn head knowledge into skill and helps you refine skills.
Head knowledge may let you impress people when you’re standing around, talking…but it takes skill to actually DO things.
Here’s how it works…sleep cycles are about 90 minutes each. And when you hit the 6 hour mark, you get about a 30 minute period of REM sleep. It’s during this time that the motor cortex uses the special calcium to convert short term memories to long term memories and to refine existing skills.
If you don’t get this 30 minute period of REM sleep, it’s WAY more difficult to learn new skills or refine old ones, and it will take you a lot more time and effort to make the same gains in performance.
This is true with shooting, martial arts, music, or any skill that you use at work. All of them will be much easier to learn if you get that 30 minutes of REM sleep, 6 hours after you fall asleep.
The biggest reason why people don’t get this 30 minute period of REM is because they just don’t get enough sleep. If you don’t get at least 6.5 hours of sleep, you may be able to improve at skills, but you’re never going to improve as fast as you could if you got that 30 minute period of REM.
One way of looking at it is that if you spend $300 on a training class, you could get a full night’s sleep afterwards and get the full value of the class OR you could only sleep 6 hours and maybe only get $10-$20 of benefit.
What else matters?
Anything that disturbs REM sleep can prevent you from remembering new skills. This includes too much alcohol before bed, caffeine after mid-afternoon, nicotine at bedtime, too loud, warm, or bright of a room, screen time before bed, and prescription sleep aids that take you straight to deep sleep, skipping the majority of REM sleep.
The right sleep is something that top performers focus on, but most shooters don’t really pay attention to it. But sleep has the power to make your training time more efficient and effective, cut through daily brain fog, and help you perform at a higher level in stressful situations.
by Mike Ox
Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, Dry Fire Fit, 21 Day Alpha Shooter, and See Faster, Shoot Faster. His brain based training focuses on accelerated learning techniques for shooting as well as controlling brain state and brain chemistry for optimal performance in extreme stress situations. Learn more about dynamic dry fire training for defense and competition at www.DryFireTrainingCards.com/blog
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