Monitoring athletes sleep: a survey of current trends amongst practitioners

Achieving adequate sleep is considered important for athletic performance and recovery from exercise, yet the sleep monitoring methods applied amongst practitioners within highperformance sport are not well documented. This study aimed to identify the athlete sleep monitoring practices currently being implemented by practitioners working with full-time, junior (competing at the highest level), and semi-professional athletes. An online survey was developed and disseminated via email and social media to practitioners working with high-performance athletes. A sample of 145 practitioners completed the survey. Most (88%) practitioners rated sleep as ‘extremely important’ for recovery and performance (79%) and 84% of practitioners had advised athletes on improving sleep. The practitioners who reported monitoring sleep used several methods, including a questionnaire (37%), diary (26%) and actigraphy (19%). The most cited barrier to monitoring sleep was lack of time/resources. Most (79%) practitioners had not determined athletes’ chronotypes. Over half (54%) of the practitioners suggested their athletes did not get enough sleep outside of competition periods; the highest ranked suggested reason for this was screen time (i.e.,using electronic devices). Practitioners recognise the importance of sleep for athletes and sleep education/monitoring was common amongst the practitioners; however, chronotype analysis was not widely used. Most practitioners used questionnaires and diaries to monitor athletes’ sleep and suggested that their athletes often experience insufficient sleep outside of competition periods.