REF-203 · Vitale et al., 2019 · International Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. · Paper

Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations

C+thin evidenceMeasured on a mixed groupWritten before October 2026, being re-checked

Key Findings (from the abstract)

Vitale et al. summarise the effects of sleep deprivation and sleep extension on athletic performance. Most sleep-deprivation research is in the general population; athlete-specific studies are few.

Sleep deprivation clearly impairs performance: reaction time, accuracy, vigor, submaximal strength and endurance all suffer, as do cognitive functions such as judgment and decision-making. Sleep extension can improve reaction times, mood, sprint times, tennis-serve accuracy, swim turns, kick-stroke efficiency, and free-throw and 3-point accuracy.

"Banking" sleep — extending sleep before a night of intentional deprivation ahead of an event — is a newer idea that may also help. Athletes fighting sleep loss may reach for supplements with potentially serious side effects; improving sleep quality is simple, effective, and benefits both health and performance.

What the abstract does and does not give

Direction of effects only: no hours of sleep, no percentages, no growth-hormone or deep-sleep figures, no room temperatures, caffeine half-lives, nap durations or supplement doses.
Earlier versions of this entry carried figures for all of these; none is traceable to the abstract and they have been removed or relabelled (see Content correction).

Practical Application

Sleep deprivation degrades reaction time, accuracy, vigor, submaximal strength, endurance, judgment and decision-making, while extending sleep improves reaction time, mood, sprint times and sport-specific skill accuracy (tennis serve, swim turns, free throws); sleeping more before a planned short night ("banking") may help too, and improving sleep quality is a simpler, safer route than supplements with side effects (narrative review, Vitale 2019).
Treat sleep as a training variable, not a background condition: a short-sleep week shows up first as slower reactions, worse mood and lower submaximal strength and endurance — before the athlete "feels" unfit.
If a travel night or an early race start will cut sleep, extend sleep on the nights before (banking) rather than trying to recover it after.
When an athlete reports poor sleep, the first move is hygiene, not a supplement: the review's own conclusion is that sleep quality improvements are simple and effective, while supplement routes carry side-effect risk.
Not from this paper; the base's own practice: consistent wake time, a dark and cool room, no late caffeine, screens off before bed, and short early-afternoon naps when sleep-deprived. These are the base's hygiene rules; the review's specific recommendations are in the full text and were not checked against the abstract. Sleep-extension protocol details and outcomes are in REF-3500 (Mah 2011).

Limitations

From the design as the abstract reports it: a narrative review with recommendations; no systematic search or pooled analysis is described.
The authors note that most sleep-deprivation research is in the general population and few studies exist in athletes.
The abstract gives direction of effects only, with no effect sizes.
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level

regraded 2026-09-27 from A: narrative review without systematic method, no new data

Content correction 2026-09-27
Entire "Quantitative Data" block (9-10 h, 60-75% GH, 15-20% deep sleep / 72-96 min, <10%, 18-19 °C, caffeine 5-7 h / 14:00 / 22:00) deleted: none of it is in the abstract.
Practical figures (7-9 h / 8-10 h, ±30 min, magnesium 200-400 mg, 2 h screens, 20-30 min naps 13:00-15:00) deleted as findings; hygiene kept only as the base's own unnumbered practice.
"Weeks 1-14 / weeks 6-10" plan and "<5% deep sleep for 3 nights → cold water immersion" deleted; the claim that REF-132 (Plews) links low deep sleep to HRV depression 24-48 h later deleted — REF-132 does not say that.
Added the abstract's actual outcome list (sprint times, tennis serve, swim turns, kick stroke, free throws, 3-point accuracy), the banking-sleep concept and the supplements-vs-hygiene conclusion; Level A -> C+ (narrative review).
Cross-references to duplicate stubs repointed to their canonical entries (REF-132->REF-361); the stubs were emptied on 2026-09-27.
2026-09-28: added Limitations from the abstract (Europe PMC/PubMed PMID 31288293).