Sleep Quality in Professional Ballet Dancers

Abstract

Ballet dancers are competitive athletes who undergo extreme physical and mental stress and work according to an irregular schedule, with long days of training, rehearsal, and performance. Their most significant potential risks entail physical injury and altered sleep. The elaborate training requirements for ballet dancers do not allow regular chronobiological patterns or a normal sleep-wake rhythm. Our aim was to investigate the sleep-wake rhythm and sleep quality during rehearsal phases prior to a ballet premiere. We used wrist actigraphy and sleep diaries for a period of 67 days before the ballet premiere performance to study 24 classical ballet dancers. We likewise applied the Epworth Sleepiness Score (ESS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), SF-12 Quality of life Assessment, and d2 Test of Attention to assess quality of sleep, aspects of cognitive performance, and health status. We found significant reduction in sleep duration, from 418+/-43 min to 391+/-42 min, and sleep efficiency, from 81+/-4% to 79+/-5%, over the 67-day course of the rehearsal. We also found a decline in time in bed and an increase in wakefulness after sleep onset. Sleep onset latency did not change. However, the changes in sleep as documented by actigraphy were not reflected by the subjective data of the sleep diaries and sleep scores. As a result of the facts that total sleep efficiency and sleep duration values were already lower than usual for the dancers' age group at the beginning of the study and that mental acuity, concentration, and speed were likewise impaired, we observed exacerbated health deterioration in terms of sleep deprivation in ballet dancers during preparation for a premier. We conclude that individual activity-rest schedules, including daytime naps, may be helpful, especially during the stressful training and rehearsal experienced prior to ballet premieres.

Poor precompetitive sleep habits, nutrients’ deficiencies, inappropriate body composition and athletic performance in elite gymnasts

“…Aesthetic athletes such as gymnasts, professional dancers and synchronized swimmers train and compete in conditions of extreme physical and mental stress (Fietze et al, 2009); moreover, training hours are usually based on logistics rather than on physiological aspects of the human body. Thus, athletes cannot rest sufficiently, they have irregular chronobiological sleepwake rhythm (Fietze et al, 2009), low EA, unbalanced contribution of macronutrients, and micronutrients, stress and low BMI for their age (Silva & Paiva, 2014). In fact, Brand et al (2010b) found out that female athletes, who weekly spent 17.7 hours exercising, had a worse quality of sleep (5.2 ± 1.1) when compared with controls (4.9 ± 1.2).…”

Sleep Quality and Chronotype Differences between Elite Athletes and Non-Athlete Controls

“…Previous research has found that elite athletes have poor sleep quality [9,[15][16][17]. For example, more than 55% of athletes in the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton team were flagged as being poor sleepers [9].…”

“…For example, more than 55% of athletes in the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton team were flagged as being poor sleepers [9]. Poor sleep was also observed in 50% of a sample of 24 professional ballet dancers [15], 50% of 175 elite rugby and cricket athletes [16], and 25% of 107 professional Finnish hockey athletes [18]. Despite such evidence for a high prevalence of poor sleep in elite athletes, little is known about what kinds of sleep disturbances occur.…”

Evidence of disturbed sleep and mood state in well-trained athletes during short-term intensified training with and without a high carbohydrate nutritional intervention

“…Thus, the manner in which sleep duration and efficiency are affected by strenuous exercise and training days remains unclear (Fietze et al, 2009). Previous sleep research has primarily focused on physically active groups of 'good sleepers' whereby the exercise stress is low and the margin for sleep improvement is relatively small (ceiling effect) (Driver & Taylor, 2000).…”