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Sleep Strategies for Sportsmen; What can they be? A Randomised Controlled Trial

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Abstract

Sleep problems exist in sportspersons. There is a need to find the strategies which may help in improving sleep in sports. A trial to study the effects of yoga nidra and progressive muscle relaxation intervention on sleep profile of the athletes was done. Yoga nidra was given during the morning and compared to practicing progressive muscular relaxation before sleeping at night. 57 male sportsperson from seven sports disciplines completed the study. Baseline and post-intervention data after 4 weeks of intervention was obtained using a 14-day sleep diary and overnight sleep staging in volunteers. The data of 45 athletes was analyzed. The baseline data showed 64% to have subjective sleep onset latency (SOL) more than 30 min. There was significant improvement in objective SOL (p value = 0.031). Both the interventions significantly improved all subjective sleep variables. However, during inter group comparison subjective SOL, Time in Bed (TIB) and sleep efficiency (SE) were significantly improved in yoga nidra group as compared to PMR group (p value = 0.0001). Sleep problems in sportspersons exists and sleep strategies using PMR and yoga nidra are useful in improving sleep in sportsperson.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the sportspersons who participated in the study. The authors are thankful to DST SATYAM scheme for the funding of JRF in the lab.

Funding

The conduct of the study was not funded. One of the author who helped in preparation of the manuscript was funded as JRF position from Department of Science and Technology (DST) SATYAM, India Scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sports Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India

    Karuna Datta, Narendra Yadav, Thomas Joseph & Anuj Kumar

  2. Pune, Maharashtra, India

    Uma Mahajan

  3. JRF DST SATYAM, Department Sports Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India

    Yogita Narawade

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  1. Karuna Datta
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  2. Narendra Yadav
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  3. Yogita Narawade
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  4. Uma Mahajan
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  5. Thomas Joseph
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Correspondence to Karuna Datta.

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Datta, K., Yadav, N., Narawade, Y. et al. Sleep Strategies for Sportsmen; What can they be? A Randomised Controlled Trial. Sleep Vigilance 6, 165–171 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41782-021-00188-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41782-021-00188-8

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