Sleep deprivation and running endurance in NCAA endurance athletes: A critically appraised topic.

Healthy adults are recommended 7-9 hours of sleep each night by the National Sleep Foundation. Unfortunately, many high-level athletes struggle to meet this standard due to factors like their training schedules, screen time, caffeine intake and timing, and competition stress. Even a single night of sleep deprivation has been shown to decrease maximal heart rate, peak oxygen consumption, and time to exhaustion for athletes running on treadmills. Aside from athletic performance, sleep plays an important role in exercise recovery, cognitive function, metabolic regulation, immune function, and other restorative physiological processes. Stress and anxiety can disrupt sleep, early training sessions can decrease sleep duration, and chronic sleep restriction can reduce REM sleep, further changing the individual’s sleep patterns, recovery, and memory consolidation. Additional factors like muscle soreness, travel, and inconsistent sleep environments can also negatively affect sleep duration and quality. Given the crucial role of sleep for recovery and performance, optimizing quality sleep should be a prime concern for endurance athletes striving to perform at their best.