Playing sports in higher education as a protective factor against social jetlag: An exploratory study

Student-athletes face challenges balancing academic and athletic commitments, often leading to dysfunctional sleep patterns. Social jetlag - a misalignment between biological and social clocks - has emerged as a potential contributor to mental and physical strain. The current study is aimed at determining the social jetlag frequency and its associations with other sleep and health variables among student-athletes in higher education.

Sixty-seven European Portuguese student-athletes (mean age = 21.4 years) were evaluated for chronotype, social jetlag, sleep effort, daytime sleepiness, psychological distress, and perceived academic and athletic performance.

Social jetlag was computed using a corrected midpoint of sleep approach (SJLsc). Most participants (62.7 %) reported moderate social jetlag (1-2 h), and only 6 % of the sample presented high social jetlag (>2 h). Higher social jetlag was negatively correlated with academic performance and positively associated with evening chronotypes. Although group differences across social jetlag levels and chronotypes were not statistically significant, there is a trend suggesting morning types experience lower misalignment. Compared to normative data derived from Portuguese samples, participants showed higher sleep effort and lower perceived daytime sleepiness.

The prevalence of significant social jetlag among student-athletes was low, suggesting that participation in sports may serve as a protective factor, possibly due to greater health awareness and monitoring. However, further studies with larger samples are needed.