Sleep and mood of elite basketball referees during international competitions

Tom Cullen; Neil D. Clarke; Alejandro Vaquera

doi:10.1007/s11332-022-00977-2

Sleep and mood of elite basketball referees during international competitions

Tom Cullen, Neil D. Clarke, Alejandro Vaquera

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Purpose: The current study aimed to characterise the sleep habits of elite basketball referees during international competitions. Methods: Sixty-five elite basketball referees (international experience: 6 ± 3 years) provided actigraph-derived sleep data and daily mood scores during an international competition. Referees were also asked to provide reasons for nights of poor sleep. Results: Referee’s actual sleep time was 6:23 ± 1:07 (h:mm), with 70% sleeping less than 7 h. Sleep onset and offset got later as the tournament progressed, but with minimal impact on actual sleep time. Sleep onset was later following evening games than on Rest Days (50 min, P = 0.05) and after Day Games (64 min, P < 0.001), while sleep offset was not different, resulting in shorter actual sleep times following Evening Games than Rest Days (− 36 min, P = 0.027) and Day Games (− 47 min, P < 0.001). Subjective mood status was not affected by tournament stage or game timing. The most common factors identified by referees as leading to poor sleep were ‘jet lag’ and Evening Games (both 16%). Conclusion: These results highlight poor sleep habits of elite sporting officials during the most important international sporting events. Poor sleep was exacerbated in evening fixtures due to increased arousal and a curtailed opportunity for sleep rather than competitive anxiety as is often the case with athletes. Future studies should build upon our findings by investigating potential countermeasures to the issues we have identified.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	321-327
Number of pages	7
Journal	Sport Sciences for Health
Volume	19
Issue number	1
Early online date	28 Jun 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-022-00977-2
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11332-022-00977-2

Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

This document is the author’s post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.l., part of Springer Nature.

Funder

The authors would like to thank the referees who took part and the support staff from FIBA who approved and facilitated the study. No financial support was provided for the study and there are no conflicts of interest.

Keywords

Basketball
Officials
Referee
Sleep
Tournament

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

Access to Document

10.1007/s11332-022-00977-2

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Cite this

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Sleep and mood of elite basketball referees during international competitions

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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