How Does Sleep Affect Gun Accuracy?

Shooting is a fantastic hobby as it helps you focus, relax, and get away from the daily problems. However, regardless of the fact that you’re doing it for fun or you’re a hunter with an impressive record, it still requires practice. So you can’t expect to maintain the same level of accuracy if you’re using the rifle only once a month (or even less).

Many beginners seem to think that shooting is like riding a bike: once you learn it, you can’t unlearn it. But this is not true because shooting accuracy is highly dependent on muscle memory and hand-to-eye coordination. And, if you don’t practice, the sharpness of your skills will slowly fade away. But did you know that there are other factors out there that can influence your accuracy?

One of these factors is in direct connection with the type of sleep you get. I am sure you noticed that when you’re tired or stressed, your shooting accuracy suffers. This happens because the brain doesn’t function at full capacity when you don’t get enough quality sleep. Actually, sleep deprivation is a very serious matter and can affect so much more than your accuracy; it can create various weird situations in the everyday life as well.

So, if you want to make sure you’ll improve your skills, besides enrolling for a professional handgun workout, you should also think about your sleeping habits. Below I listed a few of the aspects that are affected by sleep deprivation – make sure to read them and analyze your situation (you may be sleep deprived and not even know it).

Solving Problems

Lack of sleep affects your ability to solve problems that you usually meet in everyday life. Each decision you make is based on a problem-solving process and lack of sleep can mess this up. We do have some automatisms and this is one of the reasons you don’t realize the gravity of the situation right away, but when faced with a new situation, you’ll experience a state of confusion.

Now, when you shoot a gun, and this is not a normal occurrence in your life, your brain activates certain areas. However, when you’re sleep deprived, neurons are firing at a slower rate and you won’t be able to appreciate the correct distance, angle, or wind speed. Of course, having tools that do these measurements for you helps, but accuracy is also about how you pull the trigger and how you adjust your position and stance in accordance with the target.

Slowed Movements

It’s not just the problem-solving process that will be affected – your movements will also be slower and you’ll be less certain on your legs and arms. It was scientifically proven that people who have been awake for fifteen to twenty hours have impaired performance. Actually, you will perform worse than a person with a blood-alcohol level of .05 which is just under the legal limit for driving in many states.

Now, have you ever tried to shoot a gun while under influence? I honestly hope you didn’t, but the idea is that you won’t be able to focus as you would when all your senses and skills are sharp.

Health-related Problems

First, you should know that both the quality of sleep and the length are important. Actually, the quality of sleep is more important as a few hours of deep sleep can be extremely refreshing when the time doesn’t allow for more. When it comes to quality, the mattress is of paramount importance since you can develop back problems if you’re not sleeping in the correct position. During my research, I stumbled upon TopMattress where I learned that it also matters to have the correct sleeping surface for your favorite sleeping position, so you shouldn’t ignore this aspect.

But the body is not the only one that can suffer, the brain is also affected. Prolonged periods of sleep deprivation can lead to anxiety, stress, and other problems. So, besides the general shooting training that will sharpen your skills, I think it’s best to do some training on sleeping well too.

Guest Post: Written by Edie