ArticleSleep2013
The impact of circadian misalignment on athletic performance in professional football players.
Article in Sleep, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Optimizing Athlete Travel for Performance: A Scientific Blueprint for Athletes, Coaches, and Sports Medicine Staff.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Review
- Exercise Timing in Sport: Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms Linking Performance, Recovery, and Biological Cost.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Continuous theta burst stimulation improves sleep quality and thereby enhances athletic performance in athletes with sleep disorders: A randomized controlled trial.Journal of exercise science and fitness · 2026Article
- Sleep and Athletic Performance: A Multidimensional Review of Physiological and Molecular Mechanisms.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Circadian Regulation for Optimizing Sport and Exercise Performance.Clocks & sleep · 2025Review
- Can Improving Postoperative Sleep Speed Up Surgical Recovery?Sleep science (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2024Article
- Motoric performance variation from morning to evening: 80% intensity post-activation potentiation protocol impacts performance and its diurnal amplitude in basketball players.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Travel across time zones and the implications for human performance post pandemic: Insights from elite sport.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Impacts of travel distance and travel direction on back-to-back games in the National Basketball Association.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2021Article
- Urgent wake up call for the National Basketball Association.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2021Review
- Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations.International journal of sports medicine · 2019Review
- Sports psychiatry: mental health and mental disorders in athletes and exercise treatment of mental disorders.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2019Review
- The effects of time of day and chronotype on cognitive and physical performance in healthy volunteers.Sports medicine - open · 2018Article
- Circadian Effects on Performance and Effort in Collegiate Swimmers.Journal of circadian rhythms · 2018Article
- Article
- Game Schedules and Rate of Concussions in the National Football League.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2017Article
- Comparing Performance During Morning vs. Afternoon Training Sessions in Intercollegiate Basketball Players.Journal of strength and conditioning research · 2017Article
- How jet lag impairs Major League Baseball performance.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Sleep Medication and Athletic Performance-The Evidence for Practitioners and Future Research Directions.Frontiers in physiology · 2016Article
- The Importance of Monitoring Sleep within Adolescent Athletes: Athletic, Academic, and Health Considerations.Frontiers in physiology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveWe hypothesized that professional football teams would perform better than anticipated during games occurring close to their circadian peak in performance.
designWe reviewed the past 40 years of evening and daytime professional football games between west coast and east coast United States teams. In order to account for known factors influencing football game outcomes we compared the results to the point spread which addresses all significant differences between opposing teams for sports betting purposes. One sample t-tests, Wilcoxon signed ranked tests, and linear regression were performed. Comparison to day game data was included as a control.
settingAcademic medical center.
participantsN/A.
interventionsN/A.
resultsThe results were strongly in favor of the west coast teams during evening games against east coast teams, with the west coast teams beating the point spread about twice as often (t = 3.95, P < 0.0001) as east coast teams. For similar daytime game match-ups, we observed no such advantage.
conclusionsSleep and circadian physiology have profound effects on human function including the performance of elite athletes. Professional football players playing close to the circadian peak in performance demonstrate a significant athletic advantage over those who are playing at other times. Application of this knowledge is likely to enhance human performance.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.