We have talked about sleep many times and the benefits associated with quality sleep.
Another benefit of having quality sleep is that it can help reduce the risk of injury. Matthew Walker said in his book that chronic lack of sleep across the season predicted a massively higher risk of injury and showed the study. I train many young athletes so this study was relevant to me.
He also believes that in the context of injury, there is no better risk-mitigating insurance policy than sleep. Sleep will help you recover better after a game by lowering common inflammation, stimulating muscle repair, and helping to restock cellular energy in the form of glucose and glycogen.
When one of the best, if not the best, sleep researchers in the world says things like this and has worked with athletes from the NBA and many other professional sporting teams then I listen. Improving my sleep over the past 5 years has helped me massively. It is something I try to stress the importance of to all of my clients because of the many benefits sleep has on health and performance and because it is free and something we can all work on to improve.