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

Background: 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. Methods: 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. Results: 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. Conclusions: 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.