Sleep & cognition
Do naps and caffeine help sleep-deprived athletes perform better?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Caffeine improves basic reaction speeds, while a short afternoon nap enhances decision-making accuracy, but combining the two offers no extra benefit.
How this study connects
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Which measure you take determines which countermeasure appears to work.
Countermeasures act on different outcomes rather than substituting for one another. Caffeine improved simple reaction time while a nap improved two-choice reaction time; after a normal night only the nap improved mood. Separately, 30 minutes of moderate cycling reversed sleep-deprivation impairments on a Go/NoGo task, raising accuracy by up to 9.51%.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
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Do naps and caffeine help sleep-deprived athletes perform better?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
20 min nap opportunity
Therefore, the current study aimed at investigating the effects of a 20 min nap opportunity (N20), a 5mg·kg −1 of caffeine (CAF) or their combination (CAF+N20), as possible countermeasure to the PLD-induced performance decrement after both normal sleep and partial sleep deprivation.
23 participants completed the protocol
An overall sample of 29 athletes were involved in both studies and only 23 appropriately completed their corresponding protocol (19.78 ± 1.41 [range 18–22] years, 173.13 ± 7.89 [range 166–192] cm, 71.29 ± 10.02 [range 58–97] kg, BMI = 23.73 ± 2.55 [range 19–33] kg.m −2 ) .
Key findings
Simple reaction times only improved after caffeine ingestion, whereas two-choice reaction times improved only when athletes took a nap. For subjective mood and daytime sleepiness, caffeine had a stronger positive impact after partial sleep loss, but after a normal night of sleep, only the nap improved mood. Crucially, combining caffeine with a nap did not produce better outcomes than using either countermeasure alone.
Methodology
Researchers evaluated how a 20 min nap, caffeine, or their combination affected highly trained athletes. They analyzed data from 23 male judokas across separate studies: one following partial sleep deprivation where they slept from 22h00 to 02h30, and another after normal sleep from 22h00 to 06h30. Participants completed four test sessions testing different countermeasure combinations.
Limitations
This study does not show real-world performance effects because cognitive speed and accuracy were only tested on a computer rather than during actual sports competition. Additionally, the researchers did not use brain-monitoring equipment to track actual sleep during the nap, relying instead on subjective ratings. Finally, the findings cannot be generalized to female athletes, regular coffee drinkers, or athletes who habitually take daytime naps.
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