Sleep & Athletic Performance for Young Athletes

This paper by Elizabeth Copenhaver and Alex Diamond discusses the relationship between sleep habits and athletic performance in young athletes. Copenhaver and Diamond acknowledge early on that the emphasis of this paper is on adolescent student athletes because they are a high-risk population for poor sleep health. Specifically, the authors cover general sleep recommendations, sleep physiology and architecture, how sleep impacts athletic performance and recovery, the importance of training schedules on sleep quality, the relationship between emotional states and sleep, and sleep evaluation strategies for clinicians. This article is written to give parents, coaches, teachers, and pediatricians strategies to ensure the young athletes they work with have consistent, quality sleep and understand the importance of proper sleep hygiene. 

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) recommends 9-12 hours of sleep per night for elementary aged (6-12) kids and 8-10 hours for adolescents (13-18). Parents of young children can usually meet these guidelines because they have a great deal of control over their kids’ schedules. This is not the case for most adolescents. Certain biological and lifestyle factors like puberty, social events, and technology can interfere with teenage sleep consistency. The student athlete must deal with all of these factors while also juggling the demands of practice and competition, resulting in an average of two fewer hours of sleep per night compared to students not enrolled in extracurriculars. This two hour loss of sleep is particularly detrimental to adolescent student athletes because it impacts their sleep physiology and unique sleep architecture. 

Sleep related physiological changes are due to circadian rhythms and a self-regulating system called homeostatic sleep. Circadian rhythms operate around a 24 hour cycle and are largely dependent on light exposure along with other environmental cues. In contrast, homeostatic sleep is an “internal drive associated with time since last sleep and compensates if a person is experiencing sleep deprivation.” The structure of a sleep cycle, or sleep architecture, consists of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. REM sleep is affected by sympathetic nervous system input, whereas NREM sleep is primarily associated with parasympathetic nervous system activity. Healthy humans normally complete one cycle through the NREM+REM sleep stages every 90 minutes, with a total of 5-6 full cycles per night. Children spend roughly an equal amount of time in REM and NREM sleep, but adolescents heavily favor REM sleep in the second half of the night. Therefore, sleeping just enough to function the next day is not enough for student athletes. Proper cognitive and physiological development in adolescents is largely dependent on sleep durations that meet or exceed AASM’s recommendations. To fully appreciate the value of sleep in young athletes, it’s important to understand some of the performance side effects of sleep deprivation and know what lifestyle factors can contribute to poor sleep habits.

Adolescent athletes who experience regular sleep deprivation are at risk of impaired cognitive function, weakened immune system, disruptions to hormone production and gene expression, problems with metabolic and cardiovascular health, brain inflammation, and body temperature regulation. In a competitive setting, these side effects of sleep loss result in slower reaction times, losses in skill proficiency (serving, throwing, etc.), more cognitive errors in high-stress situations, and a decreased ability to implement concepts learned in practice that may be due specifically to a loss in REM sleep. Adolescent brain waves during REM sleep mimic those of an awake brain and it’s theorized that this rest period may be “a period of memory consolidation that would be especially important for motor learning in the student-athlete.” Student athletes who sleep less than eight hours per night are also 1.7 times more likely to suffer an injury than those who meet or exceed this nightly threshold. This injury chance increase may be due to poor decision making in practice and on game days, along with impaired soft tissue recovery that would normally occur during an 8-10 hour night of sleep. 

Regarding lifestyle factors that can impact sleep quality, the authors focus on training and competition schedules, travel, and an athlete’s emotional state. Traveling across time zones and anxiety the night before a big game can decrease sleep quality, but the most significant issue facing student athletes is their practice and competition schedules. Natural circadian rhythms vary from person to person, but adolescents tend to stay up longer and wake later. This “night owl” tendency is due to hormonal changes that affect circadian rhythms and an increased sensitivity to light combined with more nighttime screen use, resulting in an average nightly sleep loss of 90 minutes between 6th and 12th grade. This means that early morning practices (6-8 AM) are directly at odds with adolescent development and can end up being ineffective due to poor workout quality and lower learning ability. Competitions that extend late into the night compound this problem and can result in poor efficiency, which is a measurement of time spent in bed versus time spent asleep. On average, adults have a sleep efficiency score of 90%, regular students achieve 77%, and student athletes rank last at 70%. Therefore, it is recommended that practice for all student athletes occurs mid to late afternoon if possible.

To summarize the article and state the obvious, sleep for adolescent student athletes is important. Kids need quality sleep to recover, learn, and develop physically, but adolescent lifestyle factors and biological traits are oftentimes at odds with how adults like to organize life. It’s essential for adults to understand that kids are not miniature adults. This idea applies to how we train children but also should be considered when we evaluate their priorities and behaviors. Many kids aren’t lazy or immature just because they want to sleep in and stay up late – they are oftentimes reacting to their unique biological development and circadian rhythms. The best support that coaches, teachers, and parents can provide to student athletes should include a healthy balance of empathy and wisdom. It may be best for schools and athletic departments to reconsider their operating hours. This could allow for more ideal learning environments, practice times that don’t compete with essential sleep windows, and an overall lifestyle change for student athletes that’s healthier and more aligned with their innate biological development.