art%3A10.1007%2Fs40279-016-0650-6.pdf (610.46 kB)
Does elite sport degrade sleep quality? A systematic review
journal contribution
posted on 2017-01-13, 16:32 authored by Luke Gupta, Kevin Morgan, Sarah GilchristBackground: Information on sleep quality and insomnia symptomatology among elite athletes remains poorly systematised in the sports science and medicine literature. The extent to which performance in elite sport represents a risk for chronic insomnia is unknown. Objectives: The purpose of this systematic review was to profile the objective and experienced characteristics of sleep among elite athletes, and to consider relationships between elite sport and insomnia symptomatology. Methods: Studies relating to sleep involving participants described on a pre-defined continuum of ‘eliteness’ were located through a systematic search of four research databases: SPORTDiscus, PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar, up to April 2016. Once extracted, studies were categorised as (1) those mainly describing sleep structure/patterns, (2) those mainly describing sleep quality and insomnia symptomatology and (3) those exploring associations between aspects of elite sport and sleep outcomes. Results: The search returned 1676 records. Following screening against set criteria, a total of 37 studies were identified. The quality of evidence reviewed was generally low. Pooled sleep quality data revealed high levels of sleep complaints in elite athletes. Three risk factors for sleep disturbance were broadly identified: (1) training, (2) travel and (3) competition. Conclusion: While acknowledging the limited number of high-quality evidence reviewed, athletes show a high overall prevalence of insomnia symptoms characterised by longer sleep latencies, greater sleep fragmentation, non-restorative sleep, and excessive daytime fatigue. These symptoms show marked inter-sport differences. Two underlying mechanisms are implicated in the mediation of sport-related insomnia symptoms: pre-sleep cognitive arousal and sleep restriction.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
Sports MedicineVolume
47Pages
1317–1333Citation
GUPTA, L., MORGAN, K. and GILCHRIST, S., 2017. Does elite sport degrade sleep Quality? A systematic review. Sports Medicine, 47(7), pp. 1317-1333.Publisher
Springer / © The AuthorsVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Publication date
2016-11-29Copyright date
2017Notes
This is an Open Access article published by Springer and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ISSN
0112-1642eISSN
1179-2035Publisher version
Language
- en