窪蹋勛圖厙

Parsley says getting enough rest at night is the single most effective performance-enhancing habit.
Parsley says getting enough rest at night is the single most effective performance-enhancing habit. (Photo: Martin Dimitrov/iStock)
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Doc Parsley Solves Your Sleep Crisis

Parsley says getting enough rest at night is the single most effective performance-enhancing habit.

If you want to understand sleep deprivation, you want to talk to a memberof the Navy SEALs, who go nearly a week without rest during training. And theres probably no better Navy SEAL to talk to than Kirk Parsley, the physician who started noticing all sorts of problems with his fellow elite soldiers. They werent recovering from workouts, they had trouble concentrating, and they were emotionally unstable. The culprit: they werent getting enough zzzs. After a decade studying the benefits of sleep, Parsley says that getting enough rest at night is the single most effective performance-enhancing habit. Miss two hours of sleep and he can tell. Here, he goes beyond the eight-hour rule to talk specifically about how shuteye makes you faster, stronger, and smarter, and how sleep aids can actually do more harm than good.

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窪蹋勛圖厙s longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will both entertain and inform listeners. We launched in March 2016 with our first series, Science of Survival, and have since expanded our show to offer a range of story formats, including reports from our correspondents in the field and interviews with the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and the outdoors.