The Negative Effects of Travel on Student Athletes Through Sleep and Circadian Disruption.

Collegiate athletes must satisfy the academic obligations common to all undergraduates, but they have the additional structural and social stressors of extensive practice time, competition schedules, and frequent travel away from their home campus. Clearly such stressors can have negative impacts on both their academic and athletic performances as well as on their health. These concerns are made more acute by recent proposals and decisions to reorganize major collegiate athletic conferences. These rearrangements will require more multi-day travel that interferes with the academic work and personal schedules of athletes. Of particular concern is additional east-west travel that results in circadian rhythm disruptions commonly called jet lag that contribute to the loss of amount as well as quality of sleep. Circadian misalignment and sleep deprivation and/or sleep disturbances have profound effects on physical and mental health and performance. We, as concerned scientists and physicians with relevant expertise, developed this white paper to raise awareness of these challenges to the wellbeing of our student-athletes and their co-travelers. We also offer practical steps to mitigate the negative consequences of collegiate travel schedules. We discuss the importance of bedtime protocols, the availability of early afternoon naps, and adherence to scheduled lighting exposure protocols before, during, and after travel, with support from wearables and apps. We call upon departments of athletics to engage with sleep and circadian experts to advise and help design tailored implementation of these mitigating practices that could contribute to the current and long-term health and wellbeing of their students and their staff members.

Wake up call for collegiate athlete sleep: narrative review and consensus recommendations from the NCAA Interassociation Task Force on Sleep and Wellness.

Sleep is an important determinant of collegiate athlete health, well-being and performance. However, collegiate athlete social and physical environments are often not conducive to obtaining restorative sleep. Traditionally, sleep has not been a primary focus of collegiate athletic training and is neglected due to competing academic, athletic and social demands. Collegiate athletics departments are well positioned to facilitate better sleep culture for their athletes. Recognising the lack of evidence-based or consensus-based guidelines for sleep management and restorative sleep for collegiate athletes, the National Collegiate Athletic Association hosted a sleep summit in 2017. Members of the Interassociation Task Force on Sleep and Wellness reviewed current data related to collegiate athlete sleep and aimed to develop consensus recommendations on sleep management and restorative sleep using the Delphi method. In this paper, we provide a narrative review of four topics central to collegiate athlete sleep: (1) sleep patterns and disorders among collegiate athletes; (2) sleep and optimal functioning among athletes; (3) screening, tracking and assessment of athlete sleep; and (4) interventions to improve sleep. We also present five consensus recommendations for colleges to improve their athletes' sleep.

A changing tide: what the new 'foundations of behavior' section of the 2015 medical college admissions test® might mean for undergraduate neuroscience programs.

Each year over 50,000 college students and alumni take the Medical College Admissions Test® (MCAT) and apply for admissions to medical school. After an extensive review process, the MCAT has undergone a major revision in form and content in order to better reflect the competencies medical students will need to be successful in their training and practice. Starting in April 2015, for the first time since the test's inception, the MCAT will include social and behavioral sciences content. The new section of the MCAT exam titled "The Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior" will test pre-health competencies that combine content knowledge with scientific inquiry and reasoning skills. Anticipating growing interest in curriculum related to the new competency based content on the exam, the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) established the Pre-health Collection within MedEdPORTAL's iCollaborative, a free repository of teaching resources. This online space gives faculty members the opportunity to share access to instructional resources in order to prepare or revise courses to include pre-health competencies. As a result of the increased content related to mind-body connections, undergraduate pre-medical students will be more likely to enroll in neuroscience courses to learn these competencies, or declare neuroscience majors, as the typical neuroscience major course requirements now meet most of the suggested pre-requisite competencies for medical school.