Who is looking after our student-athletes?

By H. Craig Heller, Erik Herzog, Gina Poe & Horacio de la Iglesia

In the world of collegiate athletics this year, there are major shifts occurring in the alignment of Athletic Conferences: e.g., the Big 10 now includes 14 teams from coast to coast. In the reporting about these discussions, deals, and decisions there has been no public consideration of the consequences for the student-athletes. With the initial announcement in June 2022 that USC and UCLA were joining the Big10, many of us sleep and circadian rhythm scientists and clinicians were concerned about the negative effects of increased cross time-zone travel on the health and performance (athletic and academic) of the student-athletes. The situation grew worse this year. The departure of 8 teams from the Pac12 means that many athletes will be facing more cross time-zone travel. A group of us decided to write a joint White Paper that calls attention to the consequences of chronic jet lag and other aspects of sleep and circadian disruption on the student-athletes. It is unlikely that revealing and explaining those problems would change the team realignments, so we focused on suggestions to mitigate circadian misalignment and sleep deprivation. The resulting White Paper titled -- Reducing the Negative Effects of Travel on Health and Performance of Student- Athletes Through Sleep and Circadian Strategies will be published and open access in the Journal of Biological Rhythms.

The paper calls attention to the fact that nearly all processes of our bodies have daily rhythms. Coordination of these many rhythmic functions is important for optimal health and performance – both athletic and academic. To achieve that coordination, there is a central circadian clock in the brain which coordinates the daily rhythms in most other cells in the body. To be useful, the central clock has to be reset or, as we say, entrained, to local time, primarily by morning and evening light. When we cross time zones, the new environmental light cannot shift the central and peripheral clocks immediately and all together, leading to misalignment of our many daily functions. The consequences (jet-lag) require about a day to recover for each time zone crossed. For example, travel from California to an event in New York takes at least 3 days to recover from the jet lag and the disruption can be repeated after returning home – jet lag going and coming.

Daily rhythms of physiological and cognitive functions are a factor in both athletic and academic performance. Many studies have shown optimal times of day for different types of activities. Cognitive functions are best in the morning while peak muscle performance best in the late afternoon early evening. Jet lag, sleep loss, and non-optimal event scheduling make things more complicated and outcomes worse. For example, in the US, an east coast team traveling to the west coast for a 7 PM game time, would be competing at their normal bedtime. A west coast team traveling to the east coast would have to wake up 3 hours earlier than at home and would most likely have circadian misalignment and short sleep. Even if they traveled the day before, it is unlikely they would find it easy to fall asleep in the new location when it is early evening home-time.

Cross time zone travel and resulting jet lag also have negative effects on academic performance. More and longer travel means more disruptions of academic work. Missed classes are a loss of opportunities for interactive learning. Studying, completing assignments, and taking exams on prolonged travel is not conducive to peak academic performance.

In the White Paper, we suggest ways to mitigate the consequences of cross time-zone travel. Strategies for pre-adaptation can be effective, but not easy to follow. These methods aim at resetting the brain clock before travel so that body time is more in line with the time at the destination. An important factor in these efforts is the control of light exposure. For a team traveling east, for two or three days before travel, avoid bright lights in the evening, eat 2 or 3 hours earlier, sleep 2 or 3 hours earlier (hard to do for young adults), rise and be exposed to bright light 2 to 3 hours earlier. The opposite changes in routines would be necessary before an east to west trip.

There are many strategies that can be employed to compliment prescribed light and dark exposure. For example, limiting social media usage can reduce light exposures at inappropriate times. Planning for quiet time to attend to academic responsibilities and avoiding arousal promoting substances such as caffeine before bedtime can improve sleep onset and duration. Scheduling of events, while not under control of the traveling team, can be designed to promote adequate sleep. Morning events for an east traveling team and evening events for a west traveling team are not optimal.

We believe that any ongoing and future discussions about athletic conference realignments and the scheduling of events in those schools that have committed to new partnerships should take the interests of the affected student-athletes as a top consideration. We hope that our White Paper will help responsible individuals and organizations understand the basics of sleep and circadian rhythms while crossing time zones. We urge the NCAA, athletic departments, and University administrators to lead in these reforms, to promote optimal health and welfare of our student-athletes and to mitigate the new challenges resulting from athletic conference realignments.

Article Details
The Negative Effects of Travel on Student Athletes Through Sleep and Circadian Disruption
H. Craig Heller, Erik Herzog, Allison Brager, et al.
First Published November 18, 2023
DOI: 10.1177/07487304231207330
Journal of Biological Rhythms

About the Authors

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Dr. H. Craig Heller is Professor of Biology and Human Biology at Stanford University. He and his laboratory members study the roles of sleep and circadian rhythms in learning and memory and in learning disabilities. Another research focus of his lab is the effects of temperature on human physical performance. He is the immediate past president of the Sleep Research Society.

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Dr. Erik Herzog, Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at Washington University, St. Louis studies the cellular and molecular basis of circadian rhythms in mammals. He and his laboratory members have discovered mechanisms underlying how circadian clocks regulate physiology, behavior, and health. Dr. Herzog is the immediate past president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms and he directs the St. Louis Neuroscience Pipeline, a NIH-funded initiative to increase diversity in the neurosciences.

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Dr. Gina Poe is Professor of Integrative Biology and Physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research is on the role of sleep in the processes of learning and memory. Dr. Poe and her laboratory members study the features of sleep that enable interactions between brain areas and systems that are responsible for creating new memories, refreshing some old memories erasing others and continually integrating new information with prior experience.

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Dr. Horacio de la Iglesia, Professor of Biology at University of Washington studies how neural systems encode time and generate rhythmic physiological and behavioral responses that are adaptations to the temporal structure of the environment. A focus of his work on human circadian rhythms is the effect of light on the timing and quality of sleep. Dr. de la Iglesia is the President of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms.