The Sleep Parameters of Olympic Athletes: Characteristics and
                    Assessment Instruments

Marco Túlio de Mello; Eduardo Stieler; Isadora Grade; André Fernandes Chaves Filho; Gabriel Mendes; Natália Ituassu; Andressa Silva

doi:10.1055/a-2233-0323

International Journal of Sports Medicine, Table of Contents

Int J Sports Med 2024; 45(10): 715-723
DOI: 10.1055/a-2233-0323

Review

The Sleep Parameters of Olympic Athletes: Characteristics and Assessment Instruments

Marco Túlio de Mello

¹Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

,

Eduardo Stieler

¹Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

,

Isadora Grade

¹Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

,

André Fernandes Chaves Filho

¹Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

,

Gabriel Mendes

²Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

,

Natália Ituassu

²Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

,

Andressa Silva

¹Sports, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

› Author Affiliations

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

Full Text

References

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material