Gooderick Julie, Clash Russ, Fisher Harry, Maxwell Neil, Hayes Mark
School of Sport, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK.
School of Natural Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
Eur J Sport Sci. 2025 Feb;25(2):e12247. doi: 10.1002/ejsc.12247.
Sleep hygiene can be defined as practicing habits that facilitate sleep; poor sleep hygiene is common among elite athletes, and improving this can be one way to enhance sleep indices. Given the large inter-individual variability of sleep, there is a need for further investigation into individualised sleep hygiene for elite female athletes, with consideration for the practical application of the method. Using a self-controlled time series design with repeated measures, n = 16 professional female footballers completed a 9-week study during mid-season. Monitoring of sleep (actigraphy, self-report) occurred at week 1, 4, 7 and 9-a control period occurred at week 2 and 3, and a subsequent intervention period occurred at weeks 5 and 6. Based on baseline sleep monitoring, media-based messages were designed with the purpose of giving a singular sleep hygiene message; all participants received these individualised messages daily across the 2-week intervention period at a standardised time of 8.00 p.m., with the intention of them actioning the sleep hygiene point. One-way analysis of variance with repeated measures was conducted to assess the differences between control period, intervention period and follow-up for each measured variable. Significant differences were observed post-intervention for sleep efficiency (p < 0.001) and sleep latency (p < 0.001), whereas the athlete sleep behaviour questionnaire score significantly improved in the follow-up period (week 9) post intervention (p = 0.039). This is the first study to present this novel method of individualised sleep hygiene education for elite female athletes and is also the first study to demonstrate the use of sleep hygiene interventions to improve sleep factors for female athletes' mid-season. This demonstrates a promising, time-efficient approach to sleep hygiene education, with a potentially wide scope of application, as well as demonstrating there is indeed potential for elite female athletes to gain sleep improvements mid-season.
睡眠卫生可定义为养成有助于睡眠的习惯；睡眠卫生不佳在精英运动员中很常见，改善睡眠卫生是提高睡眠指标的一种方法。鉴于睡眠存在较大的个体差异，有必要进一步研究针对精英女运动员的个性化睡眠卫生，并考虑该方法的实际应用。采用重复测量的自我对照时间序列设计，16名职业女足运动员在赛季中期完成了一项为期9周的研究。在第1、4、7和9周监测睡眠（活动记录仪、自我报告），第2和3周为对照期，随后第5和6周为干预期。根据基线睡眠监测，设计了以媒体为基础的信息，目的是传达单一的睡眠卫生信息；在为期2周的干预期内，所有参与者每天晚上8点都会收到这些个性化信息，以便他们采取睡眠卫生措施。采用重复测量的单因素方差分析来评估每个测量变量在对照期、干预期和随访期之间的差异。干预后睡眠效率（p<0.001）和睡眠潜伏期（p<0.001）有显著差异，而运动员睡眠行为问卷得分在干预后的随访期（第9周）显著提高（p=0.039）。这是第一项针对精英女运动员提出这种个性化睡眠卫生教育新方法的研究，也是第一项证明使用睡眠卫生干预措施来改善女运动员赛季中期睡眠因素的研究。这证明了一种有前景、省时的睡眠卫生教育方法，具有潜在的广泛应用范围，同时也证明了精英女运动员在赛季中期确实有可能改善睡眠。
