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 high- performance 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.