Abstract
Background/Purpose
Despite the importance of sleep for athletic performance, there is a lack of normative
sleep data and sex comparisons in collegiate athletes. The primary purpose of our
study was to assess the prevalence of insufficient sleep in collegiate athletes, with
a secondary aim to compare male and female athletes.
Procedures
Participants included 121 collegiate athletes (65 men and 56 women) from six team
sports and three individual sports. Subjective assessments of sleep included at-home
sleep diary, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS),
and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Objective assessments of sleep included three consecutive
off-season weekdays of wrist actigraphy to assess total sleep time (TST) and sleep
efficiency (SE).
Main Findings
Actigraphy revealed that 94% of student-athletes received <8 hours of sleep/night,
while 61% received <7 hours/night. Subjective assessments revealed that 35% had PSQI
>5, 28% had ISI scores >7, and 19% had ESS scores >10. Objective TST was not different
between sexes (6.7±0.1 vs. 6.7±0.1 hours, P = .99), but females demonstrated higher SE (87±1 vs. 82±1%, P < .01) and lower WASO (31±2 vs. 38±2 min, P = .02). Male athletes significantly overestimated TST (i.e., subjective minus objective
TST) when compared to female athletes (Δ0.7±0.1 vs. Δ0.3±0.1 hours/night; P < .01). PSQI, ISI, and ESS were not different between sexes.
Conclusions
The majority of male and female collegiate athletes received less than age-recommended
levels of sleep, and 44% subjectively reported poor sleep quality, mild severity insomnia,
and/or excessive daytime sleepiness. Sex differences were observed in male and female
collegiate athletes.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep FoundationAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Sleep and athletic performance.Curr Sport Med Rep. 2017; 16: 413-418
- Prevalence of healthy sleep duration among adults - United States, 2014.Mmwr-Morbid Mortal W. 2016; 65: 137-141
- Sleep disorders and sleep deprivation: an unmet public health problem.Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 2007; 44: 1787-1788
- Joint consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society on the recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult: methodology and discussion.Sleep. 2015; 38: 1161-1183
- Poor sleep quality and insufficient sleep of a collegiate student-athlete population.Sleep Health. 2018; 4: 251-257
- Sleep interventions designed to improve athletic performance and recovery: a systematic review of current approaches.Sports Med. 2018; 48: 683-703
- Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes.J Pediatr Orthoped. 2014; 34: 129-133
- The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players.Sleep. 2011; 34: 943-950
- Evidence for the validity of a sleep habits survey for adolescents.Sleep. 2003; 26: 213-216
- Sleep patterns and predictors of disturbed sleep in a large population of college students.J Adolescent Health. 2010; 46: 124-132
- Associations between sleep quality and domains of quality of life in a non-clinical sample: results from higher education students.Sleep Health. 2017; 3: 348-356
- Relationship between actigraphy-assessed sleep quality and fat mass in college students.Obesity (Silver Spring). 2016; 24: 335-341
- Athletes' precompetitive sleep behaviour and its relationship with subsequent precompetitive mood and performance.Eur J Sport Sci. 2014; 14: S123-S130
- Meta-analysis of quantitative sleep parameters from childhood to old age in healthy individuals: Developing normative sleep values across the human lifespan.Sleep. 2004; 27: 1255-1273
- Nighttime insomnia symptoms and perceived health in the America Insomnia Survey (AIS).Sleep. 2011; 34: 997-1011
- Sleep, sleep disturbance, and fertility in women.Sleep Med Rev. 2015; 22: 78-87
- Sleepiness and performance in response to repeated sleep restriction and subsequent recovery during semi-laboratory conditions.Chronobiol Int. 2008; 25: 297-308
- The effect of partial sleep deprivation on weight-lifting performance.Ergonomics. 1994; 37: 107-115
- Sleep restriction and serving accuracy in performance tennis players, and effects of caffeine.Physiol Behav. 2013; 120: 93-96
- The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: a new instrument for psychiatric practice and research.Psychiatry Res. 1989; 28: 193-213
- A new method for measuring daytime sleepiness: the Epworth sleepiness scale.Sleep. 1991; 14: 540-545
- Validation of the Insomnia Severity Index as an outcome measure for insomnia research.Sleep Med. 2001; 2: 297-307
- Measurement of depressive symptoms in cancer patients: evaluation of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).J Psychosom Res. 1999; 46: 437-443
- Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory (Palo Alto, CA, Consulting Psychologists Press). Inc.1983
- Understanding sleep disturbance in athletes prior to important competitions.J Sci Med Sport. 2015; 18: 13-18
- Software thresholds alter the bias of actigraphy for monitoring sleep in team-sport athletes.J Sci Med Sport. 2017; 20: 756-760
- Measuring sleep: accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of wrist actigraphy compared to polysomnography.Sleep. 2013; 36: 1747-1755
- The consensus sleep diary: standardizing prospective sleep self-monitoring.Sleep. 2012; 35: 287-302
- Validation of capturing sleep diary data via a wrist-worn device.Sleep Disord. 2015; 2015: 758937
- Blocking nocturnal blue light for insomnia: A randomized controlled trial.J Psychiatr Res. 2018; 96: 196-202
- Self-reported sleep quantity, quality and sleep hygiene in elite athletes.J Sleep Res. 2018; 27: 78-85
- Wake up call for collegiate athlete sleep: narrative review and consensus recommendations from the NCAA Interassociation Task Force on Sleep and Wellness.Br J Sports Med. 2019; 53: 731-736
- Reproducibility of a standardized actigraphy scoring algorithm for sleep in a US hispanic/latino population.Sleep. 2015; 38: 1497-1503
Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 06, 2020
Accepted:
January 22,
2020
Received in revised form:
January 12,
2020
Received:
August 19,
2019
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
