Abstract
The prevalence of sleep disturbance in athletes’ in the nights prior to important competitions or games is a worrisome phenomenon. Sixty-one athletes from an Irish university with age range of 19- 26 years were asked about their sleep habits in the nights prior to important competitions using the ‘Competitive Sport Sleep’’, questionnaire with a descriptive research design approach. Results indicated that (85%) of athletes had experienced poor sleep in the nights prior to a sports event. The causes of sleep disturbance were attributed as being more internal than external, with reasons such as nervousness and thoughts about competition particularly prevalent.
Highlights
Sleep is a significant recovery process, and health of athletes and arguably supports healthy cognition, mood, metabolism tissue repair, immune function, among other important processes in the brain and body
On the questions about the strategies used by student athletes to sleep well the nights before the competitions, our finding indicates that sixty-three percent of athletes do not have a special strategy to sleep well before the competition, but few of the athletes were indicative of strategies such as relaxation techniques, reading, watching television and listening to music
Our study shows that poor sleep experience the nights before competitions exist with student athletes just as it does with elite athletes
Summary
Sleep is a significant recovery process, and health of athletes and arguably supports healthy cognition, mood, metabolism tissue repair, immune function, among other important processes in the brain and body. Sleep as behaviour is widely acknowledged in research circles as a biological necessity which is very important for maintaining one’s physical and psychological well-being. This is an active and complex experience for both an individual and an athlete. Regulation in terms of duration of sleep suggests that sleep provides several important psychological and physiological functions. The first of these functions, theorised by Frank (2006), was the somatic theory of function, which explains the restoration relationship between the immune system and the endocrine system with sleep
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