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Sleep in professional rugby league athletes: methods to quantify and assess, factors influencing and strategies to aid (PhD Academy Award)
  1. Johnpaul Caia
  1. National Rugby League, Sydney, NSW 2021, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Johnpaul Caia, National Rugby League, Sydney, NSW 2021, Australia; johnpaul.caia{at}gmail.com

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What did I do?

I explored methods to monitor sleep in athletes, factors influencing sleep in rugby league and examined strategies to improve sleep in athletes.

Why did I do it?

For athletes, sleep is integral for recovery and preparation around training and competition.1 However, sleep is often compromised in athletes,1 who often encounter circumstances that can disturb their sleep (eg, late competition, training schedules, travel).1 Identifying such difficulties and examining strategies to enhance sleep was vital.

How did I do it?

To start, I examined the agreement between self-perceived sleep and sleep estimated via activity monitors within professional rugby league, with 63 participants wearing a valid and reliable monitoring device.2 Concurrently, estimates of sleep duration (hh:mm) were collected. Correlations examined the relationship between sleep duration estimated via activity monitors and subjective estimates.

The second stage of my work explored factors influencing sleep. I examined differences in sleep across 15 senior (25.5±3.7 years) and 15 junior rugby league athletes (18.8±0.9 years), …

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Footnotes

  • Twitter @JohnpaulCaia

  • Contributors JC led the conception, collection and analyses and writing of all associated research.

  • Funding This research was supported through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent for publication Not required.

  • Ethics approval All research was approved by the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences Ethics Committee.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.