Does Sleep Affect Athletic Performance? What Young Athletes and Parents Should Know

Preparing your child for sports includes buying the proper equipment, making sure they are hydrated, updating their medical records, and getting them to practice on time. One key component – enough sleep – may be overlooked in helping your young athlete to play a favorite sport at peak performance. 

Sleep restores the body, supports brain health, regulates hormones, strengthens the immune system, protects the heart, and repairs muscles. From little leaguers to high school athletes, lack of sleep can lead to a host of concerns affecting players’ personal life and athletic ability: poor physical performance, lack of concentration, injuries, immune system malfunctioning, mental health issues, poor decision-making, and daytime sleepiness.

During research I reported alongside Thomas Jefferson University physicians and members of the Philadelphia Phillies, we discovered that just one single night of partial sleep in an athlete can significantly impact their motor skills, strength, speed, endurance, agility, ability to recover from the game, and overall vigor. Although many of the sleep disruptors we observed in professional ball players – jet lag, time zone and altitude changes, hotel factors, and lighted fields at night – do not generally affect young athletes, some disruptors, including poor sleep hygiene, inadequate diet and hydration, and anxiety, impact the quality of sleep in all athletes. 

How much sleep do youth athletes need?

Elementary school-age children need ten to 13 hours of sleep, and teens need at least nine hours of sleep. Because sports often compete with meal times, homework, music lessons, and other activities, proper sleep hours can often be hard for parents to enforce. Yet finding a good balance among sleep and other pursuits is crucial to maintaining physical and mental health. 

Here are some key ways parents can help their student athletes get enough sleep:

• Create a consistent sleep schedule, keeping it close to the same for school days and weekends.
• Make sure the child’s bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool (65-68° F).
• Avoid electronics with screens at least one hour before bedtime. 
• Skip caffeinated beverages after noon. 

Convincing a child, or especially a teen, to change their sleep patterns can be difficult. It isn’t going to happen overnight, but each day is going to be better than the night before. I have found that children often respond well to a parent pointing out how enough sleep can help the athlete feel better, improve their sports performance, and maybe even shatter a few personal records. That’s worth cheering about!