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The Variability of Sleep Among Elite Athletes

Overview of attention for article published in Sports Medicine - Open, July 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (87th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (68th percentile)

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1 news outlet
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12 X users
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1 Facebook page

Citations

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79 Dimensions

Readers on

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309 Mendeley
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Title
The Variability of Sleep Among Elite Athletes
Published in
Sports Medicine - Open, July 2018
DOI 10.1186/s40798-018-0151-2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Mathieu Nedelec, Anis Aloulou, François Duforez, Tim Meyer, Gregory Dupont

Abstract

Practicing sport at the highest level is typically accompanied by several stressors and restrictions on personal life. Elite athletes' lifestyle delivers a significant challenge to sleep, due to both the physiological and psychological demands, and the training and competition schedules. Inter-individual variability of sleep patterns (e.g., sleep requirements, chronotype) may have important implications not only for recovery and training schedules but also for the choice of measures to possibly improve sleep. This article provides a review of the current available literature regarding the variability of sleep among elite athletes and factors possibly responsible for this phenomenon. We also provide methodological approaches to better address the inter-individual variability of sleep in future studies with elite athletes. There is currently little scientific evidence supporting a specific influence of one particular type of sport on sleep; sleep disorders may be, however, more common in strength/power and contact sports. Sleep behavior may notably vary depending on the athlete's typical daily schedule. The specificity of training and competition schedules possibly accounts for the single most influential factor leading to inconsistency in sleep among elite athletes (e.g., "social jet lag"). Additionally, athletes are affected by extensive exposure to electric light and evening use of electronic media devices. Therefore, the influence of ordinary sleep, poor sleep, and extended sleep as important additional contributors to training load should be studied. Future experimental studies on sleep and elite sport performance should systematically report the seasonal phase. Boarding conditions may provide a good option to standardize as many variables as possible without the inconvenience of laboratory. The use of interdisciplinary mixed-method approaches should be encouraged in future studies on sleep and elite sport. Finally, high inter- and intra-individual variability in the athletes' sleep characteristics suggests a need for providing individual responses in addition to group means.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 12 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 309 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 309 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 49 16%
Student > Bachelor 38 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 35 11%
Researcher 23 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 18 6%
Other 39 13%
Unknown 107 35%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Sports and Recreations 93 30%
Medicine and Dentistry 28 9%
Psychology 24 8%
Nursing and Health Professions 14 5%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 7 2%
Other 27 9%
Unknown 116 38%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 18. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 January 2023.
All research outputs
#2,049,585
of 25,186,033 outputs
Outputs from Sports Medicine - Open
#197
of 585 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#40,905
of 336,648 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Sports Medicine - Open
#6
of 16 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,186,033 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 585 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 26.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,648 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 16 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.