Stanford Sleep Doctor, Cheri D. Mah, Gives Professional Athletes a Winning Edge

Bay Area native Cheri D. Mah, MD, MS has made a name for herself as the pioneer of bringing sleep medicine to professional athletes to enhance performance. Specifically, she is hired as a consultant to offer research-based sleep strategies for improved athletic achievement and help athletes beat jet lag while on the road.
Dr. Mah has worked in sleep research and consulting for more than 20 years and has racked up an impressive resume. She has worked with Formula One, military personnel, as well as gold-medalist swimmer and Stanford alumna Katie Ledecky for two Olympics. Dr. Mah has also worked with professional sports teams in the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League, (NHL), and Major League Baseball (MLB), such as MLB’s San Francisco Giants for eight seasons and the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles for multiple seasons.
“Applying sleep science with professional teams has been such a fun experience,” says Dr. Mah. “Working with the Giants, I developed a comprehensive sleep performance program for the players, staff, and organization. And, in 2017, I won a Super Bowl ring when I was working with the Philadelphia Eagles!”
Dr. Mah has also partnered with large athletic brands, such as Nike and Under Armour, to raise awareness about how sleep impacts athletic performance. She also collaborated with ESPN to produce the “Schedule Alert” project where Dr. Mah predicted when NBA teams were at highest risk of losing based strictly on their travel schedule. This prediction, aptly named the “Mah Score,” was based on a formula Dr. Mah created that considered many factors, such as direction of and amount of travel, recovery time, and potential for jet lag. For example, if a team from the West Coast was traveling after a night game to the East Coast after playing multiple consecutive games, Dr. Mah would predict that the West Coast team would be at risk of losing to an East Coast team that was better-rested and not jet lagged.
“I was nervous about this project because it could have been disappointing if the predictions were wrong, but in the end, they were 76 to 86 percent correct over three NBA seasons, which was very exciting,” says Dr. Mah.
The Power of Mentorship
As a rising freshman, Dr. Mah began conducting research with Dr. Wiliam Dement at Stanford, who is considered the founding father of the field of modern sleep medicine. Dr. Dement discovered the connection between dreaming and rapid eye movement, launched the first sleep clinic at Stanford, and started the popular course “Sleep and Dreams” in 1971, which is still offered today.
“The first sleep study I helped Dr. Dement with at Stanford, we were studying the effects of sleep extension in undergraduates. Several athletes were coincidentally in the study and I recognized that their athletic performance improved when they extended their sleep,” says Dr. Mah.
“Few others were studying sleep and athletic performance at that time. These early results were intriguing, and I was curious to understand more about interventions that could enhance sleep and performance. This ultimately set me on an unanticipated career path trajectory at the age of 17,” says Dr. Mah.
She continued working with Dr. Dement for the next 12 years throughout her undergraduate degree in biological sciences and psychology, master’s degree in biological sciences, and post-graduate years. Soon after earning her master’s degree, she launched her consulting business working as a sleep expert with athletes in the Bay Area.
“Dr. Dement had mentored everyone in the field of sleep medicine and I had the unique opportunity to be one of his last mentees during my years at Stanford in the early 2000s,” says Dr. Mah. “I’m so grateful for his mentorship. He has no doubt helped shape me to be where I am today.”
Medical Studies
After seven years conducting athlete studies at Stanford and working as a consultant, Dr. Mah returned to medical school at UC San Francisco and subsequently trained in Internal Medicine at Kaiser San Francisco. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic hit while she completed her three-year residency at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Francisco.
“I was a senior resident when COVID-19 struck the Bay Area, admitting patients from the emergency room,” says Dr. Mah. “It was a very scary time to be in medicine, trying to figure out how to manage this virus we didn’t have enough information about.”
In 2021, she returned to Stanford for a fellowship in Sleep Medicine and continued her consulting business with professional sports teams. Whether it was the pandemic or the pressure of being a professional athlete, Dr. Mah emphasized to her clients the importance of having a consistent wind-down routine to calm the nervous system before bed.
“When things are uncertain or hectic, having a consistent wind-down routine, based on evidence-based sleep strategies, is something you can trust to calm your brain and body,” says Dr. Mah. “When my clients or athletes have a bad game or another stressor comes up, I tell them their wind-down routine can serve as a foundation to fall back on, something their brain and body are familiar with to prepare them for sleep.”
Wearing Many Hats
Along with her consulting business, Dr. Mah also serves as a sleep expert for various Silicon Valley technology start-up companies, including those developing sleep technologies and wearables.
Also, to honor her mentor, Dr. Dement, Dr. Mah is an Adjunct Lecturer for the “Sleep and Dreams” course at Stanford. “Dr. Dement passed away a couple of years ago and we miss him,” says Dr. Mah. “I’m still close with his family, and his daughter opens the class every year by sharing about her father and continuing his legacy, which is a really special touch.”
Lastly, Dr. Mah is also a new mom. She currently lives in Sunnyvale, California with her husband and 17-month-old son. “I know how essential sleep is and try to make healthy sleep practices a priority, but kids can be a wild card,” says Dr. Mah.
“I did not get the best sleep as a new mom this past year, but it is all about the small changes we can do to improve the sleep we get each day. Start with one change to get better sleep tonight to help you be your best tomorrow,” says Dr. Mah.