Association Of Sleep and Menstrual Cycle-Related Symptoms With Stroop Task Performance in Elite Female Soccer Players

Sleep is a fundamental aspect of human recovery and is linked to cognitive performance. Athletes' sleep need may be greater than the general population due to increased recovery demands from sports training. Athletes can experience barriers to optimal sleep such as training times and competition schedules. Female athletes report poorer sleep than males including longer sleep onset latency, and more wake events. PURPOSE: To examine the associations between 3-night average sleep variables and performance in the colour-word Stroop task in elite female soccer players. METHODS: Ten naturally menstruating elite female soccer players (26 ± 5 yrs; competitive level described using McKay et al. (2022) framework) were monitored for four months. Sleep was monitored via Oura ring and sleep diary and calculated as the average of three nights before Stroop task completion. The menstrual cycle was tracked using the FitrWoman smartphone application and urinary ovulation testing. Correlation analysis was performed to investigate the associations between sleep, reaction time (RT) and accuracy in the congruent and incongruent conditions of the Stroop task. Associations classed as medium or large by Cohen (1988) are reported. RESULTS: Participants obtained 7.9 ± 1.2 hr sleep on average which is below the reported amount of sleep athletes need to feel well rested (sleep need = 8.3 ± 0.9 hr; Sargent et al., 2021). In both congruent and incongruent trials, increased number of menstrual cycle-related symptoms was associated with slower RT (r = -0.383; r = 0.494), and accuracy in incongruent trials only (r = -0.372) (p < .05). CONCLUSION: Elite female soccer players may have their cognitive performance in the form of reaction time negatively impacted by the presence of menstrual cycle-related symptoms. Symptom management strategies could be beneficial for athletes who are particularly impacted by menstrual cycle-related symptoms.