Abstract A growing body of evidence indicates that student-athletes experience suboptimal sleep health across multiple dimensions. However, limited research has explored sleep from the student-athlete’s own perspective. This study examined the lived experience of sleep health in a cohort of student-athletes known to demonstrate suboptimal sleep outcomes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 British rugby union student-athletes. During interviews, participants were presented with personalised sleep data from a prior actigraphy assessment, which served as a visual elicitation tool to facilitate reflection and discussion. Interview transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Nine lower-order themes were identified and organised into three higher-order themes: irregular patterns , reflecting structural and social demands that constrained control over consistent sleep; managing sleep behaviours , encompassing individual behaviours that often conflicted with established sleep recommendations; and connection to health , describing bidirectional relationships between sleep, wellbeing, and performance, whereby inadequate sleep contributed to negative physical, cognitive, and emotional outcomes. Overall, student-athletes identified multiple upstream influences that adversely affected their sleep health, with wide-ranging consequences for wellbeing. These findings contextualise previous quantitative evidence of poor sleep in student‑athletes and may inform the subsequent development of targeted sleep interventions grounded in behaviour change theory.
Wilson et al. (Tue,) studied this question.