The Effects of Sleep on Athletic Performance

By Arianna Lanpher

Procedure: ① Recruited 4 participants on a volunteer basis, all the of the participants had to be apart

of a D1 sport’s team. ② Phase 1: varied from 3-5 weeks depending on the participant’s schedule. During this

phase the participants observed their normal sleep/wake patterns. Each week they complied a sleep dairy with thoughts on how they slept, over all feelings when they woke up, energy levels, muscle soreness, etc. During Phase 1 there were 3 tests conducted to get baseline data for future comparison:

① Online Flanker and Stroop Test (testing complex reaction time) ② 100m/200m/400m sprinting tests ③ The Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (baseline for quality and “normalness” of sleep patterns)

③ Phase 2: varied from 3-5 weeks depending on the participant. During this phase the participants were encouraged to increase their sleep to 9-10 hours a night. The sleep dairy continued in addition to the incorporation of the Jawbone UP activity band. The band recorded the participant’s hours of sleep each night. During phase2 3 tests were conducted:

① Online Flanker and Stroop Test ② 100m/200m/400m sprinting tests ③ The Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index

④ Napping Affects Test: during Phase 2 the participants were instructed to nap for 20-30mins before coming to complete the 100m/200m/400m sprinting test. This test was conducted to see how napping affects athletic performance.

Sleep Data:

ALI

BRI

MATT

VICTORIA

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Hours slept per night Phase 2 on a normalized scale 1-5 Hours slept per night in Phase 1 on normalized scale 1-5Overall hours slept per night on a Normalized Scale 1-5Phase 2 Average hours slept per night

Online Computer Complex Reaction Test

ALI

BRI

MATT

VICTORIA

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Flanker Phase 2 (mil-laseconds)Flanker Phase 1 (mil-laseconds)

Online Computer Complex Reaction Test

ALI

BRI

MATT

VICTORIA

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Stroop Test In-congurent results Phase 2 (seconds) Stroop Test In-congurent results Phase 1 (seconds)

Sprinting Tests

ALI

BRI

MATT

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

400m (seconds) Phase 2400m (seconds) Phase 1200m (seconds) Phase 2 200m (seconds) Phase 1100m (seconds) Phase 2100m (seconds) Phase 1

Pittsburg Paper Sleeping Test

ALI

BRI

MATT

VICTORIA

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Phase 2 TestPhase 1 Test

Napping Decreased Reaction time in the participant’s reaction time results for the

Flanker Test

67%

33%

Yes No

Napping Decreased the reaction time of the participant's incongruent Stroop

Test Results

100%

YesNo

Napping Decreased the overall sprinting times of the participants

100%

YesNo

Sleep Diary Notes and Trends• Ali:

• Sleep tendency- go to bed late and sleep in• Ratio of deep sleep to light sleep increased in Phase 2

with deep sleep almost doubling• Takes her a while to get out of bed, usually lays in bed

for an hour or so before getting up, sometimes falling back asleep

• As the weeks went on felt more and more rested overall

Sleep Diary Notes and Trends Victoria:

• Her stress and anxiety levels change day to day and greatly affect her overall quality of sleep, mood, energy, and quality of life. Seems like a domino affect: one week great and then the next week not feeling up to anything

• Her light to deep sleep ratio is heavily skewed, with light sleep being most predominant- this may be due to the sleep medication

• Battling a hip injury the whole study • Muscles score easily with increased activity due to injury • When her stress/anxiety levels are low she gets great sleep

and overall feels great about life in general

Sleep Diary Notes and Trends Matt:

• In general is over trained, which prevents him from recovering properly and puts him at an increased risk for injury and sickness

• Throughout the whole study was battling a cough/cold or stress injury to his ribs- however, he never stopped training or competing

• Complains of lack of sleep and always feeling tired • Falls asleep with in minutes of laying down • Always exhausted by the end of the day

Sleep Diary Notes and Trends Bri:

• Complains of not getting enough sleep • Wakes up very early, around 6am each day but will

not go to bed until 12am-1am most nights• Many times has been so tired she has not been able

to wake up for class or practice and has missed them

• Very moody • Has trouble falling asleep • Track has been affected- one time she was unable

to compete because her body shut down right before her event. **Note: that week she on average was getting 5 hours a sleep per night

Data Trends: Test Results All of the participant’s experienced a decrease in their sprinting times when they

increased their sleep 3 of the 4 of the participants showed a decrease in their reaction time responses

for both the Flanker and Stroop online complex reaction tests when they had increased sleep 1 of the participants showed a decrease in reaction time for the Flanker Test but

scored a a higher reaction time in the Phase 2 testing of the Stroop Test than in the Phase 1 testing.

25% of the participants experienced a decrease in score for The Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, which correlates with a better overall adequacy of sleep The participants who decreased their sleep from phase 1 to 2 scored a much higher

quality index score on the Phase 2 testing, increasing their score as many as 4 points The participant who most drastically increased their sleep during Phase 2 decreased

their score by 3 points The participant who averaged around the same amount of sleep but had an increase

in quality of sleep displayed and increase of 1 in their score. Human perception plays a variable role in this test and the resulting scores

Data Trends: Average Sleep 3 out of the 4 participants actually averaged less

sleep per night during the second phase than in the first For 1 of the 4 participants they were averaging

more quality nights of sleep with a few nights (outliers) skewing the average and when making conclusions, the outlier data was not as heavily weighted

However, they all demonstrated what was hypothesized: that increased sleep will increase performance, mood, energy, and alertness and lack of sleep with have an reverse effect.

Data Trends: Poor Sleep 2 out of the 4 participants actually decreased

their sleep in the second phase contrary to what the study demanded.

With their decrease in sleep they experienced increased sickness, moodiness, major fatigue, and constant lack of energy and motivation to do every day activities 1 participant was able to overcome the lack of sleep

and still continue to train and compete at an 75% level

The other participant did not adjust as well and was so sleep deprived at one point they were unable to compete at one of their sport events

Participant's Feelings on Increased Sleep Victoria: noticed an increase in overall mood, energy, and focus

through out the day. She was ready and prepared to take on each day fresh. She attributes this to having a consistent sleep wake pattern.

Ali: noticed an increase in her overall energy and focus on a day to day basis but, did not notice an increase in mood or performance.

Matt: felt about the same during phase 1 and phase 2 in regards to sleep. He did however notice a decrease in his alertness, energy and motivation. He contributed this to in an increase in load both academically and athletically.

Bri: she noted that when she was able to get more than 8 hours of sleep mentally she felt more energized. Even if she was physically more tired she was more bubbly and in a better mood which resulted in being more productive both athletically and academically.

Conclusion: From the various methods of collected data, sleep journals, and observations I have come to a

conclusion that there is not sufficient enough evidence to say that increasing sleep will directly result in an increase in athletic performance. However, I do believe that the mental and psychological aspects play a more dominant role in the effect of sleep on athletic performance. If a person gets consistently on average 8-9 hours of sleep a night their overall mood, energy, and alertness will be greatly increased which could directly correlate to an increase in their abilities to perform in academics, athletics, and every day activities. To support my claim I bring up the 2 participants who actually demonstrated a decrease in sleep but were still able to demonstrate a decrease in reaction times and sprinting times**. I believe this comes from an athletes natural competitive drive and adrenaline. But, on the other hand, the participants who did increase their sleep showed decreases in all of there tests on top of feeling energized, alert, generally happy, and ready to take on every day activities (including training), unlike the other 2 participants who were lacking sleep.

I feel that the physiological affects of sleep on the brain and muscles in particular are the primary affecters of the increase or decrease in overall performance. The napping tests support the conclusion that sleep immediately affects mood, increases energy, and alertness which can result in better performance. All the participants averaged better scores on all of the tests than they did in phase 1 or phase 2.

With the participants who did increase their average number of hours a night demonstrated increases in overall performance, energy, muscle recovery, and alertness. Many of the positive effects of sleep are not felt individually, however when they are all linked together, the participant had an improved perception of their sleep and overall quality of life day to day.