§ Claim under review · Study
"39% of Division I athletes regularly slept under 7 hours per night; more than half of student-athletes reported excessive daytime sleepiness; and 85% reported that tiredness made it harder to concentrate during daily tasks"
Verdict
Mostly accurate
Confidence
MediumSummary
This post's sleep statistics are largely accurate and properly sourced, which is rare for viral infographics. The 39 percent figure and the "more than half report excessive daytime sleepiness" figure both trace to a real 2018 study in the journal Sleep Health that surveyed 628 varsity athletes at Stanford University. That study found 39.1 percent regularly slept under 7 hours and 51 percent scored in the excessive sleepiness range. Two caveats matter. First, the 39 percent applies to weeknights specifically, not every night, and it comes from one university rather than a national sample of Division I athletes. Second, I could not verify the 85 percent concentration figure in any accessible source, though the study did measure daytime functioning and the number may appear in the paywalled full text. All figures are self-reported rather than measured with sleep tracking devices.
The readings
key figures from the evidenceDivision I athletes sleeping under 7 hours on weekdays
varsity athletes surveyed in the Mah 2018 study
Why this verdict
Evidence
The first two figures trace directly to a real, retrievable primary study. Mah et al. 2018 surveyed 628 athletes across 29 varsity teams at Stanford University. The published abstract states that "Inadequate sleep was demonstrated by 39.1% of athletes that regularly obtain <7 hours of sleep on weekdays" and that "Fifty-one percent of athletes reported high levels of daytime sleepiness with Epworth scores ≥10." The same paper reports 42.4 percent of athletes had poor sleep quality (PSQI global score above 5), which matches the figure the post uses on a different slide.
The abstract also confirms the paper measured daytime function, noting that greater total sleep time was associated with lower frequency of difficulty waking for practice or class and lower frequency of trouble staying awake during daily activities. However, I could not retrieve a specific 85 percent concentration statistic from the abstract, the review literature, or any secondary source in the searches I completed.
Findings
✓ What's accurate 5
- The 39 percent figure is real and closely matches the source: 39.1 percent reported regularly obtaining under 7 hours.
- The population descriptor is accurate: Stanford is an NCAA Division I institution and the subjects were varsity athletes.
- "More than half reported excessive daytime sleepiness" matches the reported 51 percent with Epworth scores of 10 or above.
- The other carousel figures I could cross-check are also consistent with the cited literature, including 42.4 percent poor sleep quality from the same Mah 2018 paper.
- The post cites its sources on the slides, which is unusual and better practice than most viral statistics content.
≈ What's misleading 4
- Omitted qualifier: the 39.1 percent figure applies to weekday sleep specifically. The post says "per night," which broadens the scope beyond what the source measured.
- Sample generalization: all three figures appear to come from one university's athletes, but the post presents them as characteristics of "Division I athletes" and "student-athletes" generally. A single-campus sample at a highly selective academic institution with an unusual academic workload may not represent Division I athletes nationally.
- Rounding and framing: 51 percent becomes "more than half," which is technically correct but sits at the edge of the finding. A one point shift would reverse the phrasing.
- Self-report only: none of these figures come from objective sleep measurement, and the post does not signal that.
? What's uncertain 4
- The 85 percent concentration figure could not be verified. It does not appear in the published abstract of Mah 2018 or in any secondary source I retrieved. It may well appear in the full text results section, which sits behind a paywall and which I was unable to access before exhausting my search allowance. I am explicitly not calling it false. I am calling it unretrieved.
- The exact question wording behind the concentration item is unknown, so it is impossible to assess whether "harder to concentrate during daily tasks" faithfully reproduces the survey item.
- The exact years of data collection are unknown.
- Whether "85%" refers to all respondents or a subgroup is unknown.
Sources
5 of 5 linked to recordsMah CD, Kezirian EJ, Marcello BM, Dement WC. "Poor sleep quality and insufficient sleep of a collegiate student-athlete population." Sleep Health. 2018 Jun;4(3):251-257
Brauer AA. "Sleep problems in athletes: Prevalence and causes." Book chapter, Elsevier, 2024, pp. 73-85
American Academy of Sleep Medicine press release citing the 39 percent figure
O'Donnell, Beaven, Driller. "From pillow to podium" review
Brauer, Athey, Ross, Grandner. "Sleep and health among collegiate student athletes." Chest. 2019;156(6):1234-1245