Nightmares in Swiss elite athletes: Associated factors.

Nightmares, defined as extremely dysphoric dreams, can cause significant distress in everyday life if they occur frequently. Their aetiology is based on a disposition-stress model. As elite athletes often experience high stress levels, the present study investigated factors that might be associated with nightmare frequency in a large cohort of 2297 Swiss elite athletes (1066 women, 1231 men) with a mean age of 22.

Sleep Difficulties in Swiss Elite Athletes.

For athletes, sleep is essential for recovery and performance. Yet, up to two-thirds of athletes report poor sleep quality. Comprehensive data across all sports disciplines on the underlying causes of sleep problems are missing.

Changing Sleep Architecture through Motor Learning: Influences of a Trampoline Session on REM Sleep Parameters.

Previous research has shown that learning procedural tasks enhances REM sleep the following night. Here, we investigate whether complex motor learning affects sleep architecture. An experiment in which twenty-two subjects either learned a motor task (trampolining) or engaged in a control task (ergometer) was carried out in a balanced within-group design.

The Single Leg Heel Rise Test-A Helpful Tool for Dance Science?: A Systematic Review.

Background: Foot and ankle injuries are the most prevalent injuries in dance. The single leg heel-rise (SLHR) test is a simple tool to assess muscular endurance of the plantar flexors of the foot and is an increasingly popular manual muscle test in various areas of dance. Although the SLHR test has shown high reliability and validity in the medical field, no uniform description of this test exists in dance.

Muscle Oxygen Saturation Breakpoints Reflect Ventilatory Thresholds in Both Cycling and Running.

Pulmonary gas exchange analysis was compared to changes in muscle oxygen saturation as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy. First, ventilatory thresholds determined by common gas exchange analysis and breakpoints in muscle oxygen saturation were assessed for agreement during exercise with increasing intensity. Secondly, the relationship between muscle oxygen saturation as a surrogate for local oxygen extraction and peak oxygen uptake was assessed.

Is healthcare a team sport? Widening our lens on interprofessional collaboration and education in sport and exercise medicine.

Effective interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has great potential to improve healthcare delivery. Therefore, students and trainees in healthcare professions should be prepared for a collaborative workforce through interprofessional education (IPE) settings. However, IPC and IPE are rarely addressed in sport and exercise medicine (SEM), although the field significantly impacts the healthcare system.

Combining Wake-Up-Back-to-Bed with Cognitive Induction Techniques: Does Earlier Sleep Interruption Reduce Lucid Dream Induction Rate?

Lucid dreaming offers the chance to investigate dreams from within a dream and by real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. This state of consciousness opens a new experimental venue for dream research. However, laboratory study in this field is limited due to the rarity of lucid dreamers.

Critical oxygenation: Can muscle oxygenation inform us about critical power?

The power-duration relationship is well documented for athletic performance and is formulated out mathematically in the critical power (CP) model. The CP model, when applied properly, has great predictive power, e.g.

Sleep-dependent motor memory consolidation in healthy adults: A meta-analysis.

It is widely accepted that sleep better facilitates the consolidation of motor memories than does a corresponding wake interval (King et al., 2017). However, no in-depth analysis of the various motor tasks and their relative sleep gain has been conducted so far.

Wake Up, Work on Dreams, Back to Bed and Lucid Dream: A Sleep Laboratory Study.

Lucid dreaming offers many opportunities to study consciousness processes. However, laboratory research in this area is limited because frequent lucid dreamers are rare. Several studies demonstrated that different methods of induction could increase the number of lucid dreams.

Inducing lucid dreams by olfactory-cued reactivation of reality testing during early-morning sleep: A proof of concept.

The reliable induction of lucid dreams is a challenge in lucid dream research. In a previous study by our research group we were able to induce in about 50% of the participants a lucid dream in a single sleep laboratory night by combining a wake-up-back-to-bed sleep protocol and a mnemonic technique. In the present study, we extended our previous procedure by additional presentation of an odor during sleep to reactivate memory traces about reality testing.

Muscle oxygen dynamics in elite climbers during finger-hang tests at varying intensities.

The aim of this study was to measure muscle oxygen saturation (SmO) dynamics during a climbing specific task until failure in varying conditions. Our prediction was that SmO should be a good marker to predict task failure. Eleven elite level climbers performed a finger-hang test on a 23 mm wooden rung under four different weighted conditions, 1.

Fever Dreams: An Online Study.

In addition to a large variety of somatic symptoms, fever also affects cognition, sleep, and mood. In an online survey with 164 participants, 100 fever dream reports were submitted. Fever dreams were more bizarre and more negatively toned and included more references to health and temperature perception compared to "normal" most recent dreams - findings that are in line with the continuity hypothesis of dreaming.

Near-infrared spectroscopy-derived muscle oxygen saturation on a 0% to 100% scale: reliability and validity of the Moxy Monitor.

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to monitor muscle oxygen saturation (SmO) is rapidly expanding into applied sports settings. However, the technology is limited due to its inability to convey quantifiable values. A test battery to assess reliability and validity of a 0% to 100% scale modeled by a commercially available NIRS device was established.

Sleep-Related Issues for Recovery and Performance in Athletes.

The body of research that reports the relevance of sleep in high-performance sports is growing steadily. While the identification of sleep cycles and diagnosis of sleep disorders are limited to lab-based assessment via polysomnography, the development of activity-based devices estimating sleep patterns provides greater insight into the sleep behavior of athletes in ecological settings. Generally, small sleep quantity and/or poor quality appears to exist in many athletic populations, although this may be related to training and competition context.

Recovery and Performance in Sport: Consensus Statement.

The relationship between recovery and fatigue and its impact on performance has attracted the interest of sport science for many years. An adequate balance between stress (training and competition load, other life demands) and recovery is essential for athletes to achieve continuous high-level performance. Research has focused on the examination of physiological and psychological recovery strategies to compensate external and internal training and competition loads.

Improvement of darts performance following lucid dream practice depends on the number of distractions while rehearsing within the dream - a sleep laboratory pilot study.

In a lucid dream, the dreamer is aware of the dream state and can deliberately practice motor skills. Two field studies indicated that lucid dream practice can improve waking performance in simple motor tasks. The present pilot study investigated the effect of lucid dream practice in a controlled sleep laboratory setting, using a pre-post design with dart throwing in the evening and morning.

Changes in Subjective Sleep Quality Before a Competition and Their Relation to Competitive Anxiety.

Objective/background: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of competitions on subjective sleep quality. Previous studies have been inconclusive and lack differentiated and standardized measurements of subjective sleep quality. Furthermore the temporal relation between precompetitive anxiety and sleep quality was investigated.

Heart-Rate Variability During Deep Sleep in World-Class Alpine Skiers: A Time-Efficient Alternative to Morning Supine Measurements.

Background: It is increasingly popular to use heart-rate variability (HRV) to tailor training for athletes. A time-efficient method is HRV assessment during deep sleep.

Aim: To validate the selection of deep-sleep segments identified by RR intervals with simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) recordings and to compare HRV parameters of these segments with those of standard morning supine measurements.

Effectiveness of motor practice in lucid dreams: a comparison with physical and mental practice.

Motor practice in lucid dreams is a form of mental rehearsal where the dreamer can consciously rehearse motor skills in the dream state while being physically asleep. A previous pilot study showed that practice in lucid dreams can improve subsequent performance. This study aimed to replicate those findings with a different task (finger-tapping) and compare the effectiveness of lucid dream practice (LDP) not only to physical but also to mental practice (MP) in wakefulness.

Neuromuscular training in construction workers: a longitudinal controlled pilot study.

Objective: Many accidents at construction sites are due to falls. An exercise-based workplace intervention may improve intrinsic fall risk factors. In this pilot study, we aimed at evaluating the effects of neuromuscular exercise on static and functional balance performance as well as on lower limb explosive power in construction workers.

The phenomenology of lucid dreaming: an online survey.

In lucid dreams the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. Although such dreams are not that uncommon, many aspects of lucid dream phenomenology are still unclear. An online survey was conducted to gather data about lucid dream origination, duration, active or passive participation in the dream, planned actions for lucid dreams, and other phenomenological aspects.

Time for actions in lucid dreams: effects of task modality, length, and complexity.

The relationship between time in dreams and real time has intrigued scientists for centuries. The question if actions in dreams take the same time as in wakefulness can be tested by using lucid dreams where the dreamer is able to mark time intervals with prearranged eye movements that can be objectively identified in EOG recordings. Previous research showed an equivalence of time for counting in lucid dreams and in wakefulness (LaBerge, 1985; Erlacher and Schredl, 2004), but Erlacher and Schredl (2004) found that performing squats required about 40% more time in lucid dreams than in the waking state.

Testing the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in lucid dreaming: a tDCS study.

Recent studies suggest that lucid dreaming (awareness of dreaming while dreaming) might be associated with increased brain activity over frontal regions during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. By applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), we aimed to manipulate the activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during REM sleep to increase dream lucidity. Nineteen participants spent three consecutive nights in a sleep laboratory.