Sleep Characteristics and Mood of Professional Esports Athletes: A Multi-National Study.

Sangha Lee,Daniel Bonnar,Michele Lastella,Brandy Roane,Ian C Dunican,Sooyeon Suh,Michael Gradisar,Gemma Maisey

doi:10.3390/ijerph18020664

Abstract

Esports is becoming increasingly professionalized, yet research on performance management is remarkably lacking. The present study aimed to investigate the sleep and mood of professional esports athletes. Participants were 17 professional esports athletes from South Korea (N = 8), Australia (N = 4), and the United States (N = 5) who played first person shooter games (mean age 20 ± 3.5 years, 100% male). All participants wore a wrist-activity monitor for 7–14 days and completed subjective sleep and mood questionnaires. Participants had a median total sleep time of 6.8 h and a sleep efficiency of 86.4% per night. All participants had significantly delayed sleep patterns (median sleep onset 3:43 a.m. and wake time 11:24 a.m.). Participants had a median sleep onset latency of 20.4 min and prolonged wake after sleep onset of 47.9 min. Korean players had significantly higher depression scores compared to the other groups (p < 0.01) and trained longer per day than the Australian or United States teams (13.4 vs. 4.8 vs. 6.1 h, respectively). Depression scores were strongly correlated with number of awakenings, wake after sleep onset, and daily training time (p < 0.05). As the first pilot sleep study in the esports field, this study indicates that esports athletes show delayed sleep patterns and have prolonged wake after sleep onset. These sleep patterns may be associated with mood (depression) and training time. Sleep interventions designed specifically for esports athletes appear warranted.

Highlights

Esports is a form of organized video game competition that has become a global phenomenon over the last decade [1]
There were no differences in age, height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) between groups
South Korea, and Australia) had a median total sleep time (TST) < 7 h, with prolonged the median sleep latency was under the clinical cut-off of 30 min [37], approximately approximately half half of the participants exceeded the clinical cut-off for insomnia, insomnia, and and had had excessive excessive daytime daytime sleepiness

Summary

Introduction

Esports (electronic sports) is a form of organized video game competition that has become a global phenomenon over the last decade [1]. Recent estimates indicate that there were 443 million viewers and 885 major events in 2019 [2], with prize money in some major tournaments exceeding Wimbledon and the US Masters [3]. As the esports industry has grown and become more competitive, esports athletes have been increasingly required to try and gain performance advantages over opponents [4]. A consequence of esports’ rapid growth is that performance-based research has not kept pace with its sharp rise in popularity. Limited data exists on the factors that influence performance in esports, restricting the ability of esports athletes to make evidence-based decisions about performance management.

Results

Discussion

Conclusion