Lack of Sleep Can Affect Teen Athletic Performance

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Studies about sleep and circadian rhythms may have applications that extend outside the scientific arena and into athletic performance in young people.

Considering the negative effect of insufficient sleep on performance, one Rhode Island-based sleep expert concluded that sports teams traveling west may have the upper hand when playing on their rivals' home turf early in the day.

"It is much harder for West Coast teams to perform well on the East Coast, particularly if they are asked to perform in the morning," Dr. Mary A. Carskadon of the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center in East Providence told Reuters Health.

The reason for this is based on the athletes' sleep patterns and internal biological clocks. While studies have shown that insufficient sleep can affect a teenager's learning ability, mood and behavior, few researchers have investigated the association between children's and adolescents' sleep, circadian rhythms and athletic performance.

Carskadon's extrapolations are based on her analysis of research on related topics, much of which involved adults. The sleep-wake patterns of children are often strongly influenced by their parents, who may set strict bedtimes. When children are forced to adhere to those bedtimes, most will sleep for about 10 hours and spontaneously wake up on both school days and weekends, research shows.

These well-rested youngsters are generally known to function at their best early in the day, rather than in the late afternoon or evening. However, as children grow older and begin to get involved in clubs, community service and other extracurricular activities, or part-time employment, they may experience disruptions in their normal sleeping patterns.

"The system that's regulating and controlling sleep changes during an adolescent's development," Carskadon said. "As kids go through adolescence, the timing of sleep and all biological processes seem to push later," she explained.

Adolescents may go to sleep later than they did in previous years, while still waking early in the morning, thus getting less sleep, despite their need for the same number of hours of sleep. Thus, "young people live in a nearly constant state of chronic insufficient sleep," Carskadon writes.

Adolescents, therefore, generally perform their worst in the morning, when their brain is still craving sleep, and perk up later in the day, according to the researcher.

As sports teams travel across time zones, sleep issues "become exaggerated," she said.

Thus, the three-hour time difference between the East Coast and West Coast would benefit a team of New York adolescents, for example, whose circadian rhythms would interpret the 10 AM Pacific time start of a game to 1 PM Eastern time, when they are at their best performance. The home West Coast team, whose brains may still crave sleep at that early hour, may be at a disadvantage.

Parents, coaches and kids need to be aware that performance will suffer if athletes do not get enough sleep, Carskadon said.

Overall, research suggests that younger children who get their required hours of sleep may have better performance in the morning, and struggle to stay awake at later hours, while adolescents may struggle in the morning and perform better later in the day.

Thus, "evening games or practices are much better for older adolescents than for preteens," Carskadon said.

SOURCE: Clinics in Sports Medicine, May 24, 2005.