What Olympic Athletes Teach Us About Sleep Anxiety

If you've ever lain awake the night before something important — a job interview, a first date, a difficult conversation — you already have something in common with Olympic athletes.

A recent New York Times piece published during the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games highlighted something that might surprise you: nearly 40 percent of Team U.S.A. athletes reported poor sleep in a 2024 study. These are the most physically conditioned people on earth, preparing for the highest-stakes performances of their lives — and they struggle to sleep just like the rest of us.

What sports psychologists are teaching these athletes has a lot to offer anyone dealing with sleep anxiety, nighttime rumination, or the exhausting cycle of trying too hard to rest.

The Paradox of Sleep Effort

One of the central findings in how Olympic psychologists approach sleep is counterintuitive: the harder you try to sleep, the worse it often gets.

Dr. Emily Clark, a psychologist for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, advises athletes to aim for consistency, not perfection. That distinction matters more than it might seem. When sleep becomes a performance — something to optimize, achieve, or win — it takes on the same qualities as wakefulness. Your nervous system stays alert. Your mind monitors. Your body waits.

This pattern has a clinical name: sleep effort. It's a well-documented contributor to chronic insomnia, and it's the same trap elite athletes fall into when they check their sleep tracker scores in the morning and treat the number as a verdict on their day.

The antidote isn't indifference to sleep. It's reducing the stakes you've attached to it.

What Nighttime Rumination Actually Is

Moguls skier Tess Johnson described what many of my patients describe almost word for word: waking in the middle of the night and replaying scenarios — past performances, future fears, imagined outcomes. "I'll find myself waking up in the middle of the night, just kind of ruminating," she said.

Nighttime rumination isn't a character flaw or a sign that something is wrong with your thinking. It's what happens when your brain hasn't had a chance to process the day's emotional content before you ask it to go offline.

For athletes, that content is competition pressure. For the rest of us, it might be work stress, relationship tension, parenting worry, or financial anxiety. The mechanism is the same: your threat-detection system doesn't have an off switch, and nighttime is often the first quiet moment it has to run through its backlog.

What helps? The same techniques Olympic sleep consultants recommend:

Box breathing or slow, rhythmic breathing before bed to signal the nervous system that it's safe to downshift

A consistent wind-down routine that avoids emotionally activating content (yes, that means the doom-scrolling and high-stakes TV shows)

Journaling or a "worry window" — giving your brain a designated time to process concerns earlier in the evening, so it doesn't reserve that work for 2am

Anchor Your Wake Time, Not Just Your Bedtime

One of the most practical takeaways from how Olympic psychologists work with athletes is the emphasis on a consistent wake time rather than a fixed bedtime.

Dr. Jim Doorley, another USOPC psychologist, explains that your wake time is the most powerful anchor for your circadian rhythm — especially combined with morning light exposure. Bedtime can be flexible depending on when you're actually sleepy. Wake time should stay stable.

This is consistent with what we know from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), which is the gold-standard, evidence-based treatment for chronic sleep difficulties. One of its core components — sleep restriction — works precisely because a consistent wake time gradually rebuilds sleep drive and consolidates fragmented nights.

If you're lying in bed for nine hours but only sleeping six of them, the bed has become a place of wakefulness as much as sleep. A stable wake time, even on weekends, starts to change that association.

Your Body Is More Resilient Than You Think

Perhaps the most therapeutically important message in how the USOPC approaches sleep is this: one bad night doesn't ruin everything.

Their sleep guidelines explicitly state that a single night of poor sleep "is rarely enough to derail your performance when you have adrenaline on your side and good sleep banked from prior nights." Dr. Doorley encourages athletes to cultivate what he calls a "childlike relationship to sleep" — sleeping when tired, not overthinking it, letting go.

This is easier said than done, especially for people who have spent months or years in a fraught relationship with their bed. But it points toward something real: much of what maintains insomnia isn't the original sleep disruption. It's the catastrophic meaning we assign to it.

"I didn't sleep — tomorrow is ruined." "If I don't fall asleep in the next twenty minutes, I won't function." "Something must be wrong with me."

These thoughts are understandable, but they're also treatable. CBT-I and other evidence-based approaches directly target the cognitive distortions that keep the sleep anxiety cycle running.

When to Seek Support

If you recognize yourself in any of this — the rumination, the sleep effort, the dread of bedtime — it's worth knowing that sleep anxiety and insomnia are among the most treatable conditions in mental health.

You don't have to be an Olympian managing peak performance to deserve good sleep. And you don't have to keep white-knuckling through it.

If sleep difficulties are affecting your mood, your relationships, your work, or your quality of life, that's a signal worth taking seriously — not as a personal failure, but as information that your system needs something different.

Citation

Huber, M. F. (2026, February 7). 5 Sleep Habits to Steal from Winter Olympians. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/well/sleep-winter-olympics-athletes.html

Seasonal Affective Disorder, Sleep, and the Circadian Rhythm: Why Winter Feels So Hard

As the days grow shorter and mornings get darker, many people notice familiar changes: lower energy, heavier moods, difficulty waking up, and an urge to sleep more while feeling less rested. For some, these shifts go beyond “winter blues” and develop into Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

While SAD is often discussed as a mood condition, its roots are deeply connected to sleep and circadian rhythm disruption. Understanding that connection helps explain why symptoms emerge seasonally — and why targeting sleep and light exposure can make a meaningful difference.

What Is Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a form of depression that follows a predictable seasonal pattern, most commonly beginning in late fall or winter and improving in spring. Symptoms often include:

• Low mood or sadness

• Fatigue and low motivation

• Increased sleep or difficulty waking

• Changes in appetite or cravings for carbohydrates

• Difficulty concentrating

• Social withdrawal

Notably, many of these symptoms overlap with sleep disruption — which is not a coincidence.

The Circadian Rhythm: Your Internal Clock

The circadian rhythm is the body’s internal timing system. It regulates sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, body temperature, and energy levels. This clock is heavily influenced by light — especially morning light.

During winter months, reduced daylight and later sunrises can shift or weaken circadian signals. When the brain receives less consistent light input, the timing of sleep, alertness, and mood regulation becomes less stable.

For people vulnerable to SAD, this circadian misalignment plays a central role.

How Shorter Days Disrupt Sleep and Mood

In winter, many people experience a mismatch between their biological clock and their daily demands. They may feel sleepy earlier in the evening, struggle to wake in the morning, or sleep longer without feeling refreshed.

This disruption can lead to:

• Delayed or fragmented sleep

• Reduced sleep quality

• Daytime fatigue

• Increased emotional sensitivity

• Lower stress tolerance

When sleep timing and quality suffer, the brain’s ability to regulate emotion and motivation also declines — increasing the risk for depressive symptoms.

Why SAD Often Feels Like “Exhaustion Plus Low Mood”

Unlike other forms of depression that are associated with insomnia, SAD is often linked to hypersomnia — sleeping longer but feeling less restored. This can feel confusing and discouraging.

Circadian disruption helps explain why. When the internal clock is misaligned, sleep may be longer but less efficient. The brain does not receive the same restorative benefit, leaving people feeling sluggish, foggy, and emotionally flat.

Sleep becomes abundant but ineffective.

The Role of Light in Regulating Mood

Light is the strongest signal for circadian alignment. Morning light exposure tells the brain when the day begins, helping regulate melatonin, cortisol, and alertness.

In winter, reduced morning light can delay the circadian rhythm, leading to later sleep times, difficulty waking, and lower daytime energy. Over time, this delay can contribute to mood changes associated with SAD.

This is why light-based interventions are often central to treatment.

Supporting Sleep and Circadian Health in SAD

Addressing SAD often involves supporting the circadian rhythm rather than focusing solely on mood symptoms.

Helpful strategies may include:

• Consistent wake times, even on weekends

• Early morning light exposure, either outdoors or via light therapy

• Reducing bright light exposure late at night

• Maintaining regular meal and activity times

• Avoiding excessive time in bed during low-energy days

These interventions help strengthen circadian signals, which in turn support more restorative sleep and more stable mood.

Why Sleep-Focused Treatment Matters

When sleep and circadian rhythms are stabilized, people with SAD often notice improvements in energy, motivation, and emotional resilience — sometimes before mood fully lifts.

Sleep-focused approaches create a foundation for other treatments to work more effectively. When the nervous system is better regulated, cognitive and emotional interventions become easier to engage in.

SAD Is Not a Personal Failure

It’s important to emphasize that Seasonal Affective Disorder is not a lack of willpower or motivation. It reflects a biological sensitivity to changes in light and timing.

Recognizing SAD as a circadian-related condition reduces self-blame and opens the door to more targeted, compassionate care.

Seasonal Affective Disorder sits at the intersection of mood, sleep, and circadian rhythm. Shorter days disrupt the body’s internal clock, altering sleep quality, energy levels, and emotional regulation.

By understanding and supporting the circadian system — through light, timing, and sleep consistency — many people experience meaningful relief. Treating sleep and rhythm is not separate from treating mood; it is often the most direct path toward feeling better.