Through sleep², I have learned to structure my sleep more consciously.

Simon Bucher has done it. On February 17, the Tyrolean won the silver medal in the 100-meter butterfly at the Swimming World Championships in Doha – in 51.28 seconds. A great achievement! Perhaps it helped that he picked up a book in bed the night before. He's been doing this for a few months to distract himself and fall asleep faster. It works. He prefers to read thrillers, even if they sometimes occupy his dreams, as he says with a smile. He has also changed other things that make him wake up more refreshed in the morning. The starting point for this was a project funded by the Austrian Olympic Committee at the Olympic Center Upper Austria, which deals with regeneration and sleep and also uses sleep². “I now go to sleep more consciously somehow,” says Bucher. “At first, I didn’t really think about the added value of sleep. I just tried to sleep a lot, especially at noon. Sometimes I slept up to three hours and was really exhausted afterward.” In the project, they learned that power naps in a bright environment should last between 20 and 90 minutes. The best time for this is between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The gap to the next training session should be at least 30 minutes. “By implementing this, I was also able to extend my nighttime sleep duration,” says Bucher. “When I wake up more refreshed in the morning, I also know that it will feel better in the water.”