World Aquatics has concluded its Sleep management webinar series, which brought together 271 participants across two sessions in March and June 2026 to examine the role of sleep in athlete health, recovery and performance.

Notably, coaches accounted for 42 per cent of participants, with parents, guardians and other support staff also turning out in significant numbers. Most attendees came from swimming, though the guidance applied across every aquatic sport. The breadth of the audience reflected the fact that an athlete's sleep is shaped as much by the coaches, families and teams around them as by the athlete alone.

The first session established the foundations. Sleep specialist Dr Kirstie Anderson, joined by Olympic medallist Ona Carbonell and World Champion Giorgio Minisini, explored how the body's circadian rhythms function and why consistency matters more than occasional long nights. Carbonell reflected on learning to treat rest with the same seriousness as training, while Minisini described how a single poor night can dull the precision artistic swimming depends on. Read more here.

The second session, titled “Risks, Solutions and Tracking Methods," focused on application. It opened with interactive polls inviting participants to consider whether sleep had ever been a problem for them, before turning to the science of how sleep actually works. Dr Anderson explained that wakefulness and sleep are governed by competing chemical systems in the brain: alertness is sustained by noradrenaline, dopamine, orexin and histamine, while sleep is driven by GABA. Caffeine, she noted, works by blocking the build-up of sleep pressure, which is why managing its timing matters so much for recovery.

The session also challenged some common misconceptions. Nobody sleeps straight through the night, Dr Anderson explained, and brief awakenings are entirely normal - which is why the language people use about their own sleep matters. She outlined that roughly 20 per cent of an adult's sleep is deep sleep and that exposure to daylight plays a powerful role in setting and resetting the body's internal clock. From there, participants learned how to identify genuine sleep problems, track their sleep through manual methods, and how elite and masters athletes alike had recovered disrupted sleep patterns.

Throughout, Dr Anderson returned to a consistent message: meaningful improvement does not require a complete overhaul, only small, sustained changes in habit.

Note: While these webinars provide valuable insights, they are not a substitute for medical advice. Participants with significant or unresolved sleep issues should consult a healthcare professional.