Team England futures: the big interview with James Wilson

Known as the 'Sleep Geek', James is working with athletes and support staff from Team England Futures, a programme being delivered by SportsAid for this summer's Commonwealth Games, to help educate them on the best ways to sleep at a multi-sport event. 

With a bursting sports resume, including working with several world-class athletes, James is keen to showcase just how sleep can affect performance in sport – and how it doesn’t. 

"I help athletes on the Team England Futures programme understand themselves as sleepers and then understand how to get better sleep,” said James. "So we take into account things like their training routine, their inheritance of sleep and things like school, university and how, with all these things, to create the best sleep we can. 

"It's not always about perfect sleep – we can't really create the perfect night's sleep – but we can get better and that's what I'm trying to help the athletes do." 

James was a poor sleeper himself but was embarrassed to admit his genetic insomnia as a third-generation producer of sleep products. Finding the solution to his sleep problems in his twenties, the sleep behaviour and environment expert became committed to helping others solve their own issues. 

This summer, James is working with Team England Futures to provide an insight into how athletes must understand their own sleep needs in the build-up to, and during, events such as the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. 

"My job with the athletes is practicing multi-day events, which a lot of the athletes have not done before,” said James. "It's a bit of a unique environment and many sports people do not experience that in their careers, up to the point they do. 

"And the work of Team England Futures to introduce what might happen in these big events is really important to the athletes. Because I think from a sleep point of view, they will be sleeping in a place they have not slept before, so it’s really important as to how we make that easier. 

"How do we deal with competition and sleep over an extended period? That’s something that's really interesting about this project that we want to get into. That when you're there, what do you do? 

"But also leading up to it, how do you build up to a Championships and the event that's the pinnacle of the season and making sure we get our sleep?" 

James has been delivering online sessions to Futures participants in the lead-up to the Games, and will also be on the ground to offer in-person support in Birmingham. His sessions focus on sleep, nutrition and training in a high-pressure environment to educate the next generation of Team England athletes. 

"Whether it's a multi-day event or it's just in competition, what's really difficult for high-performance athletes is that they are taught the harder you try, the better you get,” said James. "And sleep is not that. The harder you try at sleep, the harder it gets. 

"And what I'm trying to do is make them understand the concept that forcing sleep makes it worse. Worrying about sleep makes it worse. And a lot of times saying to them 'look how well you've performed on such little sleep, why are we worrying about it?'. 

"We have some quite damaging prescriptive messages about sleep and sport…that you need 10 hours sleep when that’s not necessarily, particularly in competition, what we're looking for. And everyone's sleep is different, it's not just about how much, it's also about how good." 

Commonwealth Games England has appointed SportsAid to lead on the development, management and operational delivery of Team England Futures at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. The programme, supported by Sport England, will reinforce the importance of the Commonwealth Games, particularly one hosted on home soil, as a developmental opportunity within the talent and performance pathway!