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Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress

Since athletic development and functioning are heavily dependent on sufficient recuperation, sleep in athletes is becoming a topic of increasing interest. Still, existing scientific evidence points to inadequate sleep in athletes, especially in females. This may be due to the fact that sleep is vuln...

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Autores principales: Hrozanova, Maria, Moen, Frode, Pallesen, Ståle
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6554288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31214076
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01256
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author Hrozanova, Maria
Moen, Frode
Pallesen, Ståle
author_facet Hrozanova, Maria
Moen, Frode
Pallesen, Ståle
author_sort Hrozanova, Maria
collection PubMed
description Since athletic development and functioning are heavily dependent on sufficient recuperation, sleep in athletes is becoming a topic of increasing interest. Still, existing scientific evidence points to inadequate sleep in athletes, especially in females. This may be due to the fact that sleep is vulnerable to disturbances caused by stress and cognitive and emotional reactions to stress, such as worry and negative affect, which may exacerbate and prolong the stress response. Such disturbing factors are frequently experienced by junior athletes aiming for performance development and rise in the rankings, but may be damaging to athletic progression. Based on limited research in non-athletic samples, mental resilience may protect individuals against the detrimental effects of stress on sleep. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the extent to which sex, mental resilience, emotional (negative affect) and cognitive (worry) reactions to stress, and perceived stress, uniquely contributed to sleep quality in a cross-sectional study including 632 junior athletes. A multiple hierarchical linear regression showed that females had poorer sleep quality than males, while the mental resilience sub-components Social Resources and Structured Style were positively associated with sleep quality, providing a protective function and thus preventing sleep quality from deteriorating. Simultaneously, worry, as well as perceived stress, were negatively associated with sleep quality. Together, the independent variables explained 28% of the variance in sleep quality. A dominance analysis showed that perceived stress had the largest relative relationship with sleep quality. Based on these results, close attention should be paid to athletes’ abilities to manage worry and perceived stress, and the potential of mental resilience as a protective factor that could prevent sleep from deteriorating. The latter might be especially relevant for female athletes. Since performance margins are progressively becoming smaller and smaller, every improvement that adequate sleep can provide will be beneficial in terms of improved functioning and athletic performance.
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spelling pubmed-65542882019-06-18 Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress Hrozanova, Maria Moen, Frode Pallesen, Ståle Front Psychol Psychology Since athletic development and functioning are heavily dependent on sufficient recuperation, sleep in athletes is becoming a topic of increasing interest. Still, existing scientific evidence points to inadequate sleep in athletes, especially in females. This may be due to the fact that sleep is vulnerable to disturbances caused by stress and cognitive and emotional reactions to stress, such as worry and negative affect, which may exacerbate and prolong the stress response. Such disturbing factors are frequently experienced by junior athletes aiming for performance development and rise in the rankings, but may be damaging to athletic progression. Based on limited research in non-athletic samples, mental resilience may protect individuals against the detrimental effects of stress on sleep. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the extent to which sex, mental resilience, emotional (negative affect) and cognitive (worry) reactions to stress, and perceived stress, uniquely contributed to sleep quality in a cross-sectional study including 632 junior athletes. A multiple hierarchical linear regression showed that females had poorer sleep quality than males, while the mental resilience sub-components Social Resources and Structured Style were positively associated with sleep quality, providing a protective function and thus preventing sleep quality from deteriorating. Simultaneously, worry, as well as perceived stress, were negatively associated with sleep quality. Together, the independent variables explained 28% of the variance in sleep quality. A dominance analysis showed that perceived stress had the largest relative relationship with sleep quality. Based on these results, close attention should be paid to athletes’ abilities to manage worry and perceived stress, and the potential of mental resilience as a protective factor that could prevent sleep from deteriorating. The latter might be especially relevant for female athletes. Since performance margins are progressively becoming smaller and smaller, every improvement that adequate sleep can provide will be beneficial in terms of improved functioning and athletic performance. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-05-31 /pmc/articles/PMC6554288/ /pubmed/31214076 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01256 Text en Copyright © 2019 Hrozanova, Moen and Pallesen. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Hrozanova, Maria
Moen, Frode
Pallesen, Ståle
Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress
title Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress
title_full Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress
title_fullStr Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress
title_full_unstemmed Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress
title_short Unique Predictors of Sleep Quality in Junior Athletes: The Protective Function of Mental Resilience, and the Detrimental Impact of Sex, Worry and Perceived Stress
title_sort unique predictors of sleep quality in junior athletes: the protective function of mental resilience, and the detrimental impact of sex, worry and perceived stress
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6554288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31214076
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01256
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