Sleep
Evidence consistently indicates that prioritising sleep should be a central component of athlete development
Key takeaways
- Quality sleep is essential for the optimal development of athletes and also everyday health, both physically and psychologically.
- A significant number of youth athletes do not consistently get the recommended number of hours sleep.
- Females are more vulnerable to stress-related disturbance of sleep than males.
- Adequate sleep quality and duration reduces injury risk in adolescents and female athletes.
- Athletes can use strategies to improve their sleep duration, sleep hygiene, and overall sleep quality.
Athletes Sleep
Quality sleep is essential for athletes, supporting physical and psychological recovery, cognitive function, maintaining a healthy immune system and appropriate hormonal balance. Better sleep is consistently associated with improved mental health outcomes, including reduced depression and anxiety.
Sleep loss has also been linked to muscle loss via its negative impact on protein but also impacts carbohydrate storage.
Youth athletes are advised that 9-10 hours of sleep per night are required for optimal recovery. However, findings suggest that even the 8 hour threshold is not met on over 80% of nights by young athletes.
Quality sleep helps training, performance and reduces injury risk. Evidence shows that 40% of youth athletes are impacted by sleep-disturbance with a chronic lack of sleep among adolescent athletes being associated with a greater risk of musculoskeletal injuries.
Higher daily training loads are associated with earlier bedtimes, reduced total sleep time, and increased sleep fragmentation across both genders. Other factors reducing sleep quality or time include early morning training and evening training / games.
Female athletes
While female athletes can experience poor sleep quality, a recent review found that on average female football players were achieving satisfactory objective sleep quantity and quality.
However female athletes show a higher perception of stress and are therefore more vulnerable to stress-related disturbance of sleep quality when compared to males. As a result of this perception, females report poorer sleep quality than male athletes, even where objective measures suggest otherwise.
For female athletes, insufficient sleep of less than 7 hours significantly increases injury risk; while adequate sleep duration and sleep quality along with positive mood are protective against injury.
Conversely to some of this evidence comparing gender, some studies indicate that female athletes are more resilient following sleep loss compared with male athletes.
The menstrual cycle significantly impacts sleep patterns and quality in female athletes. Body temperature fluctuations associated with hormonal changes can disrupt the normal decrease in core temperature needed for quality sleep, particularly during the luteal phase of menstruation.
Improving sleep
Sleep extension appears to have the most beneficial effects on subsequent athlete performance. This is simply increasing total duration of sleep, ideally at night, but also by napping, if appropriate, in the early afternoon. Monitoring sleep duration and quality by athletes is also recommended, with sleep diaries or monitoring via an app being an effective option for female athletes.
Sleep hygiene is another strategy that athletes can develop to aid their duration and quality of sleep. This involves daily and pre-bed actions to enhance the chance of obtaining good sleep. Develop a routine in terms of timing and actions:
- have a set bed and waking up time
- include limiting caffeine intake late in the day,
- do not eat too late,
- do not overdo daily naps (limit them to early afternoon),
- unplug electronics and avoid phone use,
- wind down and relax 30 minutes before bed,
- dim the lights and keep the room cool.
Post-exercise recovery strategies are currently being researched with no conclusive evidence at present. However following a recovery routine in terms of cool down, nutrition and physical recovery methods should be investigated by individuals in search of what works for them, especially following evening training or games.
As with all interventions, it is important to individualise the strategies to fit the context of the situation.
references
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