As the disorder progresses, patients with depression suffer from decreased emotional stability, cognitive control and motivation. In the present study, we examined the effectiveness of three ...interventions on emotion dysregulation and insomnia severity: 1) mindfulness; 2) physical activity, and 3) mindfulness plus physical activity.
A total of 50 participants (mean age 33.21 ± 5.72 SD, 59% females) with major depression were randomly assigned to one of the three study conditions. Emotional dysregulation and insomnia severity were assessed at baseline, eight weeks later at study completion, and 4 weeks after that at follow-up.
Emotion regulation and sleep quality improved over time from baseline to study completion and to follow-up. Compared to the mindfulness and physical activity alone conditions, the mindfulness plus physical activity condition led to higher emotion regulation and sleep quality.
The combination of physical activity and mindfulness seems to have a beneficial effect on sleep quality and emotion regulation in those with major depression disorder and could be a valuable treatment strategy.
This investigation aimed to clarify the influence of circadian change and travel distance on National Basketball Association (NBA) team performance using a dataset from the 2014-2018 seasons. Data ...from 9,840 games were acquired from an open-access source. Game point differential and team free-throw percentage served as outcome variables. Time zone change (TZΔ) captured raw circadian delay/advance based on travel for a game and adjusted TZΔ (AdjTZΔ) evolved TZΔ by allowing acclimation to a novel TZ. We also further categorized AdjTZΔ into AdjTZΔ_A, which assumed travel the day before each game and AdjTZΔ_B, which assumed teams spent as many days in their home city as possible. Travel distance for each game was calculated. Linear mixed-effects modeling estimated associations, with games nested within team and year. Adjusted associations accounted for differences in team ability, whether the game was home or away, and whether the game occurred on the second half of a back-to-back game sequence. Greater circadian misalignment, regardless of delay or advance, and increasing travel distance negatively influenced NBA game performance. Yet, results suggest that performance outcomes may be more influenced by travel distance than circadian misalignment. Moreover, circadian misalignment and travel distance interacted to significantly influence game point differential. Furthermore, differences in results across analyses were observed between AdjTZΔ_A and AdjTZΔ_B, which suggests that subtle differences in constructed travel schedules can have notable impact on NBA performance outcomes. Lastly, playing on the second half of a back-to-back sequence emerged as a robust predictor of performance disadvantage, which corroborates the existing literature and provides further support for NBA schedule changes purposed to enhance competitive equity by reducing the number of back-to-back games across a season. These findings can help guide NBA teams on key strategies for reducing travel-related disadvantages and inform schedule makers on critical factors to prioritize across future schedules to attenuate competitive inequity from travel. Furthermore, they can help direct teams towards scenarios that are best to target for load management purposes due to the cumulative disadvantage arising from travel-related factors, opponent quality, game location, and game sequence.
Background
Previous research has established that general sleep screening questionnaires are not valid and reliable in an athlete population. The Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) was ...developed to address this need. While the initial validation of the ASSQ has been established, the clinical validity of the ASSQ has yet to be determined. The main objective of the current study was to evaluate the clinical validity of the ASSQ.
Methods
Canadian National Team athletes (
N
= 199; mean age 24.0 ± 4.2 years, 62% females; from 23 sports) completed the ASSQ. A subset of athletes (
N
= 46) were randomized to the clinical validation sub-study which required subjects to complete an ASSQ at times 2 and 3 and to have a clinical sleep interview by a sleep medicine physician (SMP) who rated each subjects’ category of clinical sleep problem and provided recommendations to improve sleep. To assess clinical validity, the SMP category of clinical sleep problem was compared to the ASSQ.
Results
The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.74) and test-retest reliability (
r
= 0.86) of the ASSQ were acceptable. The ASSQ demonstrated good agreement with the SMP (Cohen’s kappa = 0.84) which yielded a diagnostic sensitivity of 81%, specificity of 93%, positive predictive value of 87%, and negative predictive value of 90%. There were 25.1% of athletes identified to have clinically relevant sleep disturbances that required further clinical sleep assessment. Sleep improved from time 1 at baseline to after the recommendations at time 3.
Conclusions
Sleep screening athletes with the ASSQ provides a method of accurately determining which athletes would benefit from preventative measures and which athletes suffer from clinically significant sleep problems. The process of sleep screening athletes and providing recommendations improves sleep and offers a clinical intervention output that is simple and efficient for teams and athletes to implement.
Understanding sleep patterns and behaviors of athletes is essential for developing targeted sleep-based interventions for implementation in practice. However, more than double the number of sleep ...studies have examined male athletes compared with female athletes, making the current understanding of sleep patterns, behaviors, and interventions among athletes disproportionately indicative of men. Consequently, this review demonstrates the need for more female-specific sleep data among athlete populations due to research inattention and sex-related differences. Specifically, this review identifies variations in sleep patterns and behaviors between male and female athletes, as well as physiological and lifestyle factors that potentially affect sleep patterns and behaviors across the lifespan, specifically in female athletes. In this regard, evidence suggests some female athletes experience longer sleep durations and better objective sleep quality, but similar or worse subjective sleep quality compared with male athletes. Additionally, scheduling training in the morning or throughout the day may benefit sleep in some female athletes. Considering sleep disorders, women may be at greater risk for insomnia and restless legs syndrome compared with men, which may be attributed to pregnancy, as well as a higher prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms, iron deficiency without anemia, and use of psychotropic medication among women. Finally, the menstrual cycle, menstrual disorders, oral contraceptive use, and the postpartum period have been shown to exert detrimental effects on sleep patterns and behaviors and should theoretically be considered when monitoring and managing sleep in female athletes.
Sleep is vital for optimal mental and physical health. For athletes, optimizing sleep is becoming a popular strategy to enhance athletic performance. Athletes often complain of sleep problems ...including insufficient sleep and insomnia symptoms and are also at a higher risk for sleep disordered breathing. Sleep disorders and insufficient sleep can contribute to excessive sleepiness, daytime dysfunction, and performance problems. In contrast, better sleep provides benefits for physical health and athletic performance. For athletes, multiple factors can contribute to insufficient sleep. Sport-specific factors include frequent travel across time zones, competition and training schedules, high training loads, and sleeping in an unfamiliar environment. Non-sport-related factors include work, social, and family commitments; attitudes and sleeping beliefs; individual characteristics, such as chronotype or preference for morning or evening; and lifestyle choices. Fortunately, there are strategies that can be implemented to improve sleep in athletes including (a) education and emphasis on the importance of sleep; (b) sleep screening; providing extra sleep opportunities like (c) banking sleep and (d) napping; improving sleep hygiene like (e) proper light exposure; (f) a good pre-sleep routine; (g) a conducive sleep environment; (h) a strategy for supplementation; (i) utilizing circadian timing adjustments; and (j) jet lag management. Increased recognition of the importance of sleep from sport professionals and screening for sleep disorders and disturbances will be key for future athlete health, well-being, and performance.
Many studies have investigated the role that travel plays in athletic performance. However, these studies lacked a holistic representation of travel. For instance, they do not consider travel ...distance and uniquely focuses on travel direction.
An open source (www.evolving-hockey.com) provided NHL (2013–2020) game data. In total, this resulted in 17,088 regular season games.
Linear and quadratic versions of time zone change (TZΔ) and adjusted jet lag (AJL) were formulated. TZΔ captured circadian delay/advance based on travel for a game, with each TZ going eastward and westward reflected by −1 and +1, respectively. AJL advances TZΔ by allowing TZ acclimation, with each day resulting in a 1-unit change towards circadian neutral. AJL is a season-long rolling summation, which was computed using two different travel approaches: Approach A (AJL_A) assumes travel the day before each game, whereas Approach B (AJL_B) was designed to prioritize being home. A standardized flight tracker determined travel distance for each game. Team ability differences, characterized as difference in total season points, served as an analytic covariate. Outcome variables included goal differential, difference between actual and expected Fenwick save percentage (dFSv%), and goals saved above average (GSAA).
GameDistance (β = −0.14, p = 0.0007), AJL_B2 (β = −0.15, p = 0.0006), and their interaction (p = 0.0004) associated with GoalDifferential. GameDistance (β = −0.18, p = 0.02) and AJL_B2 (β = 0.12, p = 0.03) associated with dFSv%, whereas only AJL_B2 (β = 0.03, p = 0.05) associated with GSAA.
Results suggest that circadian change, in both direction, and greater traveled distance can negatively impact NHL athletes.
Athletes are increasingly required to travel domestically and internationally, often resulting in travel fatigue and jet lag. Despite considerable agreement that travel fatigue and jet lag can be a ...real and impactful issue for athletes regarding performance and risk of illness and injury, evidence on optimal assessment and management is lacking. Therefore 26 researchers and/or clinicians with knowledge in travel fatigue, jet lag and sleep in the sports setting, formed an expert panel to formalise a review and consensus document. This manuscript includes definitions of terminology commonly used in the field of circadian physiology, outlines basic information on the human circadian system and how it is affected by time-givers, discusses the causes and consequences of travel fatigue and jet lag, and provides consensus on recommendations for managing travel fatigue and jet lag in athletes. The lack of evidence restricts the strength of recommendations that are possible but the consensus group identified the fundamental principles and interventions to consider for both the assessment and management of travel fatigue and jet lag. These are summarised in travel toolboxes including strategies for pre-flight, during flight and post-flight. The consensus group also outlined specific steps to advance theory and practice in these areas.
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