Questionnaire Study on the Comparison among Circadian Typology, Sleep Habit, Physical and Mental Health and Meal Habit in Japanese University Athletes

Abstract

It has been pointed out that Japanese university students have several problems from psychological and social points of view due to their evening-typed life. For university athletes, evening-typed life is afraid to promote reduced quality of performance and high risk to be injured during training and match. This study tries to investigate the relationship among circadian typology, sleep habit, physical and mental health and meal habit from epidemiological view point. An integrated questionnaire was administrated to 120 men athletes attending university soccer club in November 2013 and 62 ones answered it correctly. The questionnaire included the diurnal type scale which is constructed by Torsvall & ?kerstedt (1980) and questions on sleep habits and mental health, SOC scale (SOC3- UTHS) and FFQ scale. Morning-typed students showed higher quality of sleep ( p = 0.015) and they tended to have higher SOC scores ( p = 0.071) than the other chrono-types. Evening-typed students took higher amount of carbohydrates than the other types ( p = 0.048). Circadian typology might be related to not only sleep health but also the nutritional characteristics and psychological responses to social stress in Japanese university athletes.