Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Collegiate athletes must satisfy the academic obligations common to all undergraduates, but they have the additional structural and social stressors of extensive practice time, competition schedules, and frequent travel away from their home campus. Clearly such stressors can have negative impacts on both their academic and athletic performances as well as on their health. These concerns are made more acute by recent proposals and decisions to reorganize major collegiate athletic conferences. These rearrangements will require more multi-day travel that interferes with the academic work and personal schedules of athletes. Of particular concern is additional east-west travel that results in circadian rhythm disruptions commonly called jet lag that contribute to the loss of amount as well as quality of sleep. Circadian misalignment and sleep deprivation and/or sleep disturbances have profound effects on physical and mental health and performance. We, as concerned scientists and physicians with relevant expertise, developed this white paper to raise awareness of these challenges to the wellbeing of our student-athletes and their co-travelers. We also offer practical steps to mitigate the negative consequences of collegiate travel schedules. We discuss the importance of bedtime protocols, the availability of early afternoon naps, and adherence to scheduled lighting exposure protocols before, during, and after travel, with support from wearables and apps. We call upon departments of athletics to engage with sleep and circadian experts to advise and help design tailored implementation of these mitigating practices that could contribute to the current and long-term health and wellbeing of their students and their staff members.
Source: Journal of Biological Rhythms
Authors: H. Craig Heller, Erik Herzog, Allison Brager, Gina Poe, Ravi Allada, Frank A. J. L. Scheer, Mary Carskadon, Horacio O. de la Iglesia, Rockelle Jang, Ashley Montero, Kenneth Wright, Philippe Mouraine, Matthew P. Walker, Namni Goel, John Hogenesch, Russell N. Van Gelder, Lance Kriegsfeld, Cheri Mah, Christopher Colwell, Jamie Zeitzer, Michael Grandner, Chandra L. Jackson, J. Roxanne Prichard, Steve A. Kay, Ketema Paul
Institutions: Stanford University, Washington University in St. Louis, United States Army, University of California, Los Angeles, Northwestern University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Brown University, Bradley Hospital, University of Washington, Flinders University, University of Colorado Boulder, Stanford Medicine, University of California, Berkeley, Rush University, University of Cincinnati, University of Arizona, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, University of St. Thomas - Minnesota, University of Southern California
Language: English
Subfield: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NHLBI Division of Intramural Research
OpenAlex ID: W4388798288