Pro baseball players prove going without sleep is worse than you thought

Two new studies have shown a link between how tired baseball and football players feel, and how well their careers go. Both studies are being presented at the SLEEP 2012 conference by W. Christopher Winter, MD.

Top image: SoxyLady/Flickr.

The first of the studies involved tracking college football players who'd been drafted into the NFL. Of the 55 players for whom Winter had self-reported sleepiness information, only 38% of the sleepier ones stayed with the team that had drafted them, compared to 56% of those who reported less daytime sleepiness.

For the baseball players, Winter randomly selected 40 professional players, and two years after collecting their sleepiness information, he tracked what they were up to. MLB generally has an attrition rate of around 35% — but for those who were more sleepy during the day, it ranged from 57%-86%.

Now, both of these studies are comparatively small, but it really shouldn't be too surprising that athletes who are more tired and less alert might have trouble in their chosen fields. Now, how long will it be before we're required to undertake alertness tests before getting hired for a new job?