Canadian Olympians Banned from iPhone Use at Night for Better Sleep

We all love our iPhones and when we’re not using them incessantly multiple times during the day, our phones are usually the last and first things we check before and after we sleep. Sleep is so precious and important to athletes that Canadian Olympians will be banned from using their iPhones at night, as part of a major sleep research project funded by the Own the Podium program (via The Globe and Mail):

Charles Samuels contacts Canadian Olympians and tells them it’s past their bed time. He bans Red Bull drinks and puts moratoriums on their iPhone use at night.

“They hate me,” he says.

He isn’t losing sleep over it.

Dr. Charles Samuels wants better sleep habits and notes sleep is important for a variety of reasons when it comes to athletes:

“This is new, and we really don’t know the answer to that question. But we speculate, that one: Sleep is important for cognitive recovery, learning – which is critical for athletes – and imprinting memory. And then, for physical recovery and injury prevention.”

When the difference between a gold or silver medal can come down to thousandths of a second, Canadian athletes need any advantage they can get.

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