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Int J Sports Med
DOI: 10.1055/a-2233-0323
Review

The Sleep Parameters of Olympic Athletes: Characteristics and Assessment Instruments

Marco Túlio de Mello
1   Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
,
Eduardo Stieler
1   Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
,
Isadora Grade
1   Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
,
André Fernandes Chaves Filho
1   Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
,
Gabriel Mendes
2   Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
,
Natália Ituassu
2   Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
,
Andressa Silva
1   Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
› Author Affiliations Funding This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior under Grant number 0001; and Ministério do Esporte (Governo Federal, Brazil) under Grant number 58000.008978/2018–37 and 71000.056251/2020–49; Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
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Abstract

This systematic review aims to identify the sleep parameters of Olympic athletes and the instruments used to assess and monitor the sleep of these athletes. The search was conducted until February 2023 and was performed in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. This systematic review has included studies that investigated at least one of the following sleep parameters: total sleep time (TST), sleep onset latency (SOL), sleep efficiency (SE), awakenings after sleep onset (WASO), quality of sleep, daytime sleepiness, and chronotype; the participants were Olympic athletes. The search returned a total of 280 studies. After screening based on exclusion and inclusion criteria, 11 studies were included. The main results demonstrate that Olympic athletes have TST of 06:10 h, SE of 84%, SOL of 28 min, and WASO of 49 min. The most predominant chronotype is indifferent; over half of the athletes have poor sleep quality and complaints. Furthermore, actigraphy was the most used method to assess sleep. It is concluded that Olympic athletes have TST, SE, and WASO poor than the recommended values. In addition, sleep complaints and poor sleep quality were also observed. Among the objective sleep assessment methods, actigraphy was the method most frequently used in this population.

Key words

training - sports - recovery - chronotype - travel

Supplementary Material



Publication History

Received: 22 September 2023

Accepted: 19 December 2023

Accepted Manuscript online:
19 December 2023

Article published online:
24 February 2024

© 2024. Thieme. All rights reserved.

Georg Thieme Verlag
Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany

 

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