Sleepy Spurs?

This was a very interesting article I came across last month as I am a now big Phoenix Suns fan in that sleep may have affected the San Antonio Spurs' play during West Coast games.

The news reporter, Wendy Rigby, gave the scores of the San Antonio Spurs match up and made a prediction for game 6 against the Sacramento Kings:

"For Game 6, the Spurs won't have a home-court advantage, and a scientific study shows they may actually be at a four-point disadvantage when they hit the court."

In a 1997 article "Effect of Travel and Rest on Performance of Professional Basketball Players" of the journal "Sleep", the researchers discussed the idea that the biological clock of NBA players may be so affected by traveling time zones that their play may suffer. Looking at the same type of thing in NFL players the Journal Sleep also talked about the time zone changes and agreed with the above study.

However, I have some serious problems with these findings. First you are not comparing apples to apples when you think that these two teams are equal, and the ONLY factor is one of playing in a different time zone.

I don't care where you are, Tim Duncan is Tim Duncan, and depending upon who he is matched up with, that is more likely to be the ball game.*

Another important factor would be how much rest the team had after arriving at the destination. Remember it only take most people 1 day per time zone to acclimate.

Finally, as with the NFL study, we know that many players, based on their body types can have other sleep disorders which can affect their play (e.g., sleep apnea) so again I think that this work represents an interesting statistic, but there is a reason why the last studies like this were done in 1997.

*In fact, that was the case -- Tim Duncan scored 15 points and the Spurs won by 22, advancing to the next round

Related Topics: Sleeping Tips for When You Travel, How Sleep, or Lack of, Affects Teen Athletes

Technorati Tags: Tim Duncan, sleep apnea, NBA

Don't Sleep and Drive

Fatigue technology to warn motorists
From: AAP
May 07, 2006

I found this article to be really interesting. An Australian based company has developed a technology called Optalert using sensors implanted inside the frames of glasses to let drivers know if they are falling asleep. Amazingly enough the company received a 1 Million dollar funding from the large insurance carrier in the area.

According to the insurance company:

"One-in-five crashes occur on the roads because motorists are driving when they are drowsy - this costs live and costs the economy $15 billion a year in health and insurance costs," NRMA Motoring and Services CEO Tony Stuart said.

The glasses measures eye and eyelid movements at more than 500 times a second, this data is sent to a processor which then will set off an alarm when the driver becomes drowsy. This technology will be available by September 2006.

Related Topics: The Toll of Sleep Loss in America, 13 Healthy Habits to Improve Your Life

Technorati tags: sleep, sleep disorders, driving drowsy, driving accidents