Sleep Facts
Collegiate athletes:
- In a 2018 study of 628 collegiate athletes from 29 varsity teams, 42% experienced poor sleep quality and 51% reported high levels of excessive daytime sleepiness.
- Sleep is the #1 thing their athletic time commitments keep them from doing.
- Sleep symptoms (especially insomnia) lead to an increased likelihood of lower GPA (Grade Point Average) and significantly higher risk for academic failure (GPA <2.0).
Professional athletes:
Studies estimate the prevalence of sleep disturbances in athletes ranges from 13% to 70%. There are hundreds of studies that have looked at sleep problems in specific sports, specific nations, different levels of sport, different leagues, which all show that the prevalence of sleep problems in athletes, and the psychiatric problems that go along with them, cannot be ignored any more.
Factors contributing to sleep problems in athletes:
1. Lifestyle factors: Physical and mental demands, training and competition schedules, social and media appearances, sponsors and advertisements, electronic media devices, and many others.
2. Type of Sport: Intensity of training, body-type impact on sleep, seasons of play, etc.
3. Training type (aesthetic coordination vs speed vs strength vs endurance).
4. Time of training and individual chronotype. [the time of day a person prefers to sleep]
5. Individual athletes attitudes about sleep
6. Seasons of play: Several studies show that pre-season, off-season and in-season sleep and performance vary greatly.
7. Travel: short-haul travel (travel fatigue, timing, duration, type of travel, frequency) and long-haul travel (time zones) can both disrupt sleep.
8. Sleep Environment: traveling for games and training.
The evidence shows that poor sleep directly impacts:
· Inflammation,
· Immunity
· Hormone balance
· RER (respiratory exchange ratio)
· Concussion risk and recovery,
· Mental and practical errors.
· Reaction times,
· Accuracy,
· Sprint times,
· Shooting accuracy in basketball (9.2%),
· Tennis serving speed and accuracy (20-40%)
· Swimming start times (17%)
· Circadian misalignment (peak performance, related to early vs late risers differs by up to 26%).
· Hand-eye coordination,
· Emotional resilience (think squabbles with team mates and coaching staff),
· Memory (limiting your ability to think about and execute your game plan).
· Worse pain tolerance,
· Increased injury rates
· Slower recovery and prolonged rehabilitation after injuries
· Impaired recovery from a single HIIT session,
· Reduced PPO (peak power output),
· Reduced motivation to train,
· Decreased maximal jump performance,
· Increased joint coordination variability (which predisposes an athlete to injury, because of faulty technique),
· Negative effect on the continuous kicking test (soccer),
· Steeper learning curves,
· Perceived increased training load,
· Poorer concentration and sustained attention,
· Maximal isometric strength,
· Lower psychological resilience,
· Difficult team dynamics,
· Slower muscle recovery,
· Lower muscle glycogen,
· Poor glucose metabolism,
· Shortened playing career
Impact of poor sleep on overall health:
1. Hormone Imbalance:
· Men who sleep five hours a night on average, have significantly smaller testicles than those who sleep seven hours or more. One study showed that when healthy young men get five hours of sleep every night for a week, their testosterone levels drop by 10-15%.
· We see equivalent drops in female reproductive health caused by a lack of sleep, linking it with early menopause.
· Less deep sleep results in less growth hormone, which is crucial for growth in children; and in adults; increased production and reduced breakdown of proteins, muscle growth, repair of damage, recovery after a game or after an injury, and bone building.
· Sleep deprivation can lead to more cortisol production, which can worsen stress, accelerate muscle breakdown, and further contribute to insomnia/ excessive wakefulness, setting up a bad feedback loop.
· The global hormone replacement therapy market size was USD 13.40 billion in 2020. The market is projected to grow from USD 14.17 billion in 2021 to USD 21.49 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 6.1% in the 2021-2028 period.
2. Increased Inflammation: Sleep loss is known to activate mediators and markers of inflammation and cell damage.
3. Premature aging: Independent studies have found an association between sleep deprivation and shortened telomeres (the endcaps of DNA) in children, as well as healthy adult males (with sleep apnea, which reduces sleep quality), as well as those with short sleep duration.
4. Gene Activity: In healthy adults limited to six hours of sleep a night for one week, 711 genes were distorted in their activity. The genes that were switched off by a lack of sleep were genes associated with the immune system (which indicated an increased risk of infection). In contrast, those genes whose activity levels were increased by way of a lack of sleep were genes associated with the promotion of tumors, long-term inflammation, stress, and—as a result—cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, dementia and other conditions directly associated with inflammation.
5. Infections and Immunity: Even a small loss of sleep has been shown to impair immune function. In one study, those who slept less than seven hours were almost three times more likely to develop a cold than those who slept eight hours or more.
6. Cancer: In a study where participants were restricted to four hours of sleep for a single night, there was a 70% drop in natural killer cell activity. These cells play a critical role in immunity, especially in fighting tumor cells and virally infected cells.
7. Poor Sleep Can Make You Fat: Short sleep duration is one of the strongest risk factors for obesity. In one massive review study, children and adults with short sleep duration were 89% and 55% more likely to become obese, respectively.
8. Heart Disease:
· Poor sleepers have a greater risk of heart disease and stroke. A review of 15 studies found that short sleepers are at far greater risk of heart disease or stroke than those who sleep seven to eight hours per night.
· Daylight Saving Time: In the spring, when we lose one hour of sleep, we see a subsequent 24% increase in heart attacks that following day. In the fall, when we gain an hour of sleep, we see a 21% reduction in heart attacks.
9. Diabetes Risk: In the general population, those sleeping less than six hours per night have repeatedly been shown to be at increased risk for type 2 diabetes. In a study of healthy young men, restricting sleep to four hours per night for six nights in a row caused symptoms of pre-diabetes.
10. Dementia: Chronic sleep deprivation contributes to cognitive decline and
even dementia. If you are in a contact sport, the additional risk of repeated
blows to the head compounds the risk of dementia.
11. Academic/ professional performance: 40-percent deficit in the ability of
the brain to make new memories without sleep. On average, each additional
day per week a student reports experiencing sleep problems, raises the
probability of dropping a course by 10%.
12. Life span: Evidence from epidemiological studies across millions of
individuals conclude that the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life.
In other words, POOR SLEEP LITERALLY KILLS YOU
Academic and work performance
We believe that improving the quality of your workers sleep will not only improve their overall health, but the quality of their work, relationships and team dynamics. Our mission is to make sleep awareness and healthy sleep training as ubiquitous as sexual harassment training and wellness benefits.
The impact of sleep problems on academic performance:
• Among respondents in a 2009 ACHA-NCHA survey, sleep disturbances independently predicted poor academic performance, on par with high-risk drinking in its association with GPA and course completion.
• On average, each additional day per week a student reported experiencing sleep problems, raised the probability of dropping a course by 10%.
• Cost of HS/ college dropouts in the US: An estimated $3.8 billion is lost each year as a result of college dropouts.
The impact of sleep problems on workplace productivity and performance:
• World Sleep Day Society relayed that 46% of the world’s sleep-deprived individuals frequently miss work or commit more mistakes in the office compared to the 15% who get sufficient sleep.
• The Better Sleep Council estimates that sleep deprivation costs US businesses over $150 billion per year in lost work performance alone.
• Cost of workplace compensation: The total cost of work injuries in the US in 2019 was $171.0 billion. This figure included wage and productivity losses of $53.9 billion, medical expenses of $35.5 billion, and administrative expenses of $59.7 billion.
• A study released in 2018 by Dutch researchers looking at data from 1435 people with insomnia indicated that they were 56% more likely to have impaired work performance.
• In the UK, Hult International Business School’s Professor Vicki Culpin led a study that linked sleep deprivation to poor performance which showed that all the major aspects of cognitive functioning were highly impacted by sleep loss (executive control functions of decision-making, creativity, processing, adaptability, learning and control of emotions, among others).
• Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as 1.5 hours for just one night can result in a reduction of daytime alertness by as much as 32 percent.
The impact of sleep problems on workplace safety:
Some of the biggest disasters in the world have been linked to sleep deprivation, such as the Challenger shuttle disaster, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Three Mile Island disaster, Chernobyl.
It is estimated that every year, 6400 fatal accidents in the USA are because of sleep deprivation.
Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as 1.5 hours for just one night could result in a reduction of daytime alertness by as much as 32 percent. Excessive sleepiness also contributes to a greater than twofold higher risk of sustaining an occupational injury.
Some of the biggest names in business understand that happy, well-rested workers are going to get more done and do their jobs better.
These companies have addressed the sleep needs of their employees with sleep pods, nap rooms and quiet rooms. They include Google, Cisco, Procter and Gamble, Huffington Post, Nike, Ben & Jerry’s, New York Times, Zappos, Hearst, Newsweek, Time Warner, Yarde Metals, Rodale, Pizza Hut and more.
The healthcare industry is one of the worst affected:
MEDICAL ERRORS are the third-leading cause of death in US!
A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. Other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000.
Sleep deprivation leads to impaired physicians. Just as you would never sign up to be treated by a drunk surgeon, you should have the right to be treated by a well-rested doctor.
Cost of medical errors:
• House staff make 33% more serious errors and 5 times as many diagnostic errors when working shifts longer than 16 hours.
• Harvard professor Dr. Charles A. Czeisler conducted a study on sleep deficit in hospital interns who had been scheduled to work for at least 24 consecutive hours. They found that:
• Their odds of stabbing themselves with a needle or scalpel increased 61%,
• Their risk of crashing a motor vehicle increased 168%,
• Their risk of a near miss increased 460%.
• When on-call residents work overnight (compared to those who work a 16-hour shift!) they have:
• Twice as many attention failures,
• Commit 36 percent more serious medical errors,
• Report 300 percent more medical errors that lead to death.
• The Institute of Medicine has estimated that medical errors cost $17 billion to $29 billion per year in the US alone.