Christian Standhardinger emphasizes importance of sleep to active lifestyle

MANILA, April 4 ------ Christian Standhardinger, the Filipino-German professional basketball player whose last team was the Terrafirma Dyip of the Philippine Basketball Association, prefers good sleep over intense practice.

“If it's between a workout or good sleep, I go for sleep. It became so extreme for me because I know it makes such a difference in the day-to-day performance of yourself, is that I work out hard, I get a lot of sun, and I have a good diet to actually optimize my sleep at the end of the day. It affects everything,” said Standhardinger, who won four PBA championships, two PBA Best Player of the Conference Awards, and one PBA Finals MVP Award.

The 6 ft. 8 in center/power forward talked about his sleeping habits at the “8-Hour Movement: A Wake-Up Call for Better Sleep” event of mattress brand Uratex at home-appliance store, Abenson Waltermart Makati on March 14, in celebration of World Sleep Day this March. “Sleep is one of the most important pillars of health, yet it’s rarely discussed when people think about upgrading their homes,” said Christian Cheng, category manager of the mattress brand. “With the '8-Hour Movement,' we hope to show how the right mattress can help people achieve deeper, more restorative sleep.”

Getting eight hours of sleep, assured Standhardinger, helps with his active lifestyle. “First of all, it increases your brain function, right? You can make the extreme opposite example. So, if you don't get enough sleep, go on three hours’ sleep and try to go out of the day and then see how good you perform. It's not very good,” he said. “That's why you need that eight hours of sleep. It's very important. For me, I prioritize it over everything, right? If it's between a good diet or good sleep, I will take sleep.”

Does it affect his performance in his field? “I remember a lot of coaches of mine got very annoyed about myself because if there's game day and we're on an outside trip, if it's the national team, if it's Gilas, if it's in Ginebra for example, I always made sure that on game days I get as much sleep as possible. I almost force myself to sleep most of the day and then I just go to the game just because it affects my performance that much,” Standhardinger recalled.

He added that good sleep makes such a big difference and people underestimate that a lot. “It takes a lot of discipline also. But if you really want to win, that's something that you can do that is maybe a one-time investment, for example, with the [right] mattresses,” Stamdhardinger concluded. “But then every day, your sleep is a little bit better. That's a very smart way to get the most efficiency out of your life. It's a good investment to have a better-quality mattress. Your health and everything then follows.”

Source: philstar.com