Factors Affecting Sleep Quality among Adolescent Athletes

Abstract

Objectives: This study used a cross-sectional experimental design to examine the association between sleep quality and sports performance among adolescent recreation team-sports athletes in Hong Kong. By investigating the factors that affect sleep quality, it intended to arouse awareness of coaches and athletes the importance of sleeping so that they can improve training and competition performance.Methods: Hundred and twelve male and female participants with age range from 12 to 17 were involved in this study. A One-way ANCOVA model was designed to analyze the relationships among sleep quality and five factors (consume of caffeine or alcohol, extreme mood, sleeping environment, anxiety due to academic, and anxiety due to sports) and multiple regression analysis was adopted to predict the sleep quality through the coefficient of those variables.Results: Consumption of drinks or food that contained caffeine or alcohol, experiencing extreme mood such as shock or being too excited before sleep and having a bright and noisy sleeping environment affected the sleep quality. Most student athletes were struggling between academic results and sports in Hong Kong. The results had shown that nervousness due to academic was another factor that affected sleep quality. It has also found that not only academic results could affect sleep quality of student-athletes, but also nervousness due to sports could also be another thrilling factor. There were significance effects among factors in "drinking/eating drinks/food which contains caffeine or alcohol", "poor sleeping environment", "sleeping duration", and "self-rated sleep quality". Conclusion:The preliminary findings provide evidence that majority of secondary student-athletes are suffering from inadequate sleep due to dreadful sleeping qualities, which caused adverse conditions both physically and psychologically, and brought worst impacts to training and competitions performance. It is recommended that sleep hygiene could be promoted to coaches and athletes to enrich their knowledge of having better sleeping patterns. Much needed evidence regarding relationships of different aspects such as brain wave, sleeping patterns, injuries, diet, and the possible effects on sleep quality.

Sleep, Nutrition, and Injury Risk in Adolescent Athletes: A Narrative Review

“…To feel rested, the literature has demonstrated that elite athletes need ~8.3 h of sleep [64,65]. Moreover, adolescent athletes achieve, on average, ~6.3 h [47,66,67] of sleep, demonstrating a discrepancy between sleep recommendations and actual sleep achieved [42,68,69]. Sleep-wake cycles also undergo development during adolescence whereby adaptation occurs in sleep regulation during this phase [68].…”

Collagen peptide supplementation before bedtime reduces sleep fragmentation and improves cognitive function in physically active males with sleep complaints

“…Indeed, studies have shown that student athletes have more variable sleep patterns [ 35 ], tend to sleep less [ 32 ] and report high levels of daytime sleepiness [ 36 ]. There are several possible reasons why athletic populations may experience increased daytime sleepiness and worse sleep quality; heightened or excessive physical activity, high supplement intake (e.g., caffeine), increased post-exercise body temperature and/or elevated levels of fatigue and pain, and increased sympathetic nervous system activation, could all feasibly negatively impact sleep quality [ 37 – 39 ]. Consequently, there is a growing interest in dietary strategies that could enhance sleep quality in this population.…”

Contemporary Variables that Impact Sleep and Development in Female Adolescent Swimmers and Gymnasts

“…Additionally, while the AAP does not recommend the stimulant caffeine to be consumed by adolescents [7], 30-50% report ingesting it [8], which may alter their sleep [9]. Youth athletes face these challenges to their sleep with the additional factors of (a) practice, competition, and travel times that may disrupt sleep [10,11], (b) physical and mental stressors of athletic performance [12], and (c) pain and recuperation due to injury [13].…”

“…This review examines contemporary variables leading to sleep debt in adolescent female athletes (FA) including blue light from Fig. 1 Contemporary independent variable impacting sleep and the potential dependent physiological variables [7,11,15,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Sleep is broadly indicated in this diagram to include the complex physiological mechanisms that occur as a result of sleep debt.…”

“…Sleep is broadly indicated in this diagram to include the complex physiological mechanisms that occur as a result of sleep debt. Research by Lo et al in Hong Kong investigating volleyball, handball, football, and basketball in adolescent athletes found variables such as academics, caffeine consumption, and light were factors in poor sleep quality [11] screens, social media content and caffeine consumption. This review defines female adolescence as the age range that encompasses the complex pre-pubertal to pubertal stages of development.…”