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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Sleep Sci 2019; 12(04): 242-248
DOI: 10.5935/1984-0063.20190084
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Gender differences in sleep patterns and sleep complaints of elite athletes

Andressa Silva
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
,
Fernanda Veruska Narciso
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
,
João Paulo Rosa
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
,
Dayane Ferreira Rodrigues
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
,
Aline Ângela da Silva Cruz
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
,
Sérgio Tufik
2   Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Departamento de Psicobiologia - São Paulo - São Paulo - Brazil.
,
Fernanda Viana
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
,
Jorge José Bichara
3   Comitê Olímpico do Brasil, Comitê Olímpico do Brasil - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.
,
Sebastian Rafael Dias Pereira
3   Comitê Olímpico do Brasil, Comitê Olímpico do Brasil - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.
,
Sidney Cavalcante da Silva
3   Comitê Olímpico do Brasil, Comitê Olímpico do Brasil - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.
,
Marco Túlio De Mello
1   Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Esportes - Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais - Brazil.
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Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the gender differences for sleep complaints, patterns and disorders of elite athletes during preparation for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Methods: The study included 146 athletes from the Brazilian Olympic Team (male: n=86; 59%; female: n=60; 41%). The assessment of the Olympic athletes’ sleep took place in 2015, during the preparation period for the Rio Olympic Games. The athletes underwent a single polysomnography (PSG) evaluation. Sleep specialists evaluated the athletes and asked about their sleep complaints during a clinical consultation. In this evaluation week, the athletes did not take part in any training or competitions.

Results: The prevalence of sleep complaints was 53% of the athletes during the medical consultation, the most prevalent being insufficient sleep/waking up tired (32%), followed by snoring (21%) and insomnia (19.2%). In relation to the sleep pattern findings, the men had significantly higher sleep latency and wake after sleep onset than the women (p=0.004 and p=0.002, respectively). The sleep efficiency and sleep stages revealed that men had a lower percentage of sleep efficiency and slow wave sleep than the women (p=0.001 and p=0.05, respectively).

Conclusion: Most athletes reported some sleep complaints, with men reporting more sleep complaints than women in the clinical evaluation. The PSG showed that 36% of all athletes had a sleep disorder with a greater reduction in sleep quality in men than in women.

Sleep - Athletes - Sports - Sleep Disorders - Gender


Publication History

Received: 05 February 2019

Accepted: 18 September 2019

Article published online:
31 October 2023

© 2023. Brazilian Sleep Association. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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