How CFB's Best Battle Through Sleep Apnea
High-level football players are "five to six times more likely" to develop sleep apnea compared to the general public.
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How CFB’s Best Battle Through Sleep Apnea
Hey friends,
While the schedule of college football players appears complicated from the outside, the adherence to a regulated routine often makes complex days seem ordinary.
Between early morning wake-up calls for offseason workouts, two-a-day practice periods, film sessions, and walkthroughs, when the work is all said and done, all high-level gridiron performers return home searching for a common theme — a prolonged period of sound sleep.
On average, most Division I football athletes compete on the practice field for about 15 hours per week. On the same token, the same amount of weekly reps and drills accounts for about three nights of full sleep, which isn’t nearly enough to repair muscle tissue in the recovery phase.
In a recent study on 189 University of Arizona student-athletes, researchers found that 68% reported poor sleep quality, with 87% getting less than the recommended eight hours of rest per night.
Not only did I struggle with sleep deprivation during my stints as a tight end for Penn State and UMass, but I was also diagnosed with a more serious condition — sleep apnea.
In essence, sleep apnea is a disorder where breathing repeatedly starts and stops in the resting process. Excessive daytime fatigue, morning headaches, irritability, and attention deficits all plagued my day-to-day lifestyle due to a disorder I simply couldn’t shake.
As I began to research the root of sleep apnea’s cause, I was shocked to learn how common the ailment is in football players, specifically within a few NFL greats. Reggie White, one of football’s most feared pass rushers ever, tragically passed in 2004 at 43.
Recent medical studies suggest that sleep apnea served as a contributing factor in White’s early death. The sad reality shows that NFL players are four to five times more likely to have sleep apnea, with about 60% of retired football players ultimately developing the disorder, per the Mayo Clinic.
Recently, I partnered with Lofta, the industry leader in sleep apnea mitigation and care. I believe in forming sponsorships with products I actually use, and Lofta has truly changed the way I function daily.
Before Lofta, I lacked the adequate rest needed for an entire day’s worth of production. Now, I’m able to put the barriers to rest by being back in control of my sleep schedule.
“The big idea for Lofta was revolutionizing the diagnosis and treatment journey to get people on therapy quicker — and stay on therapy longer,” Jay Levitt, Lofta’s founder said.
From engaging customers in sleep studies to working hand-in-hand with sleep therapists to receiving patented smooth and fast-running machines, Lofta puts consumer care above business incentives.
Lofta leads all competitors in CPAP machine innovation with over 20 models of nasal, full-face, and nasal pillow masks. Moreover, most units are sold in travel-sized dimensions, ensuring you’re care remains constant on the go.
In light of scoring my recent partnership with Lofta, and knowing how sleep apnea has greatly affected my own football career, I wanted to take a deep dive into three college football legends who prevailed on the field despite sleep apnea-induced setbacks.
While most believe sleep apnea only affects people who are overweight, the myth couldn’t be further from the truth. People with a neck circumference over 17 inches, which classifies most NFL players, have an increased risk of sleep apnea.
Additional crowding around the neck naturally blocks airways, making it difficult and taxing to breathe over a full night’s sleep duration.
From 2006 to 2008, Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators accumulated a 35-6 record over the three-year span, resulting in a pair of national championship victories.
The typically defensive-minded SEC was consistently diced by Florida’s modern iteration of the spread offense, which changed the way weapons space the field. At the forefront of the attack proved to be Percy Harvin, a five-star commodity who turned into an NFL great, league Rookie of the Year, and a Super Bowl Championship.
Despite Harvin’s unflashy 5’11”, 184-pound stature, the burner’s muscular build caused him to fall victim to sleep apnea’s stronghold.
The former first-team All-American suffered a slew of hampering injuries with the Gators and at the NFL level, but a scary, life-altering tumble in 2010 led to a shocking sleep apnea diagnosis for the league’s most explosive outside asset.
After the collapse sidelined Harvin for weeks with the Minnesota Vikings, Harvin found solace in sleep apnea therapy. The incident, which occurred at practice, caused Harvin’s heartbeat to fully stop for upwards of 10 seconds.
Days following the lapse, Harvin recounted the scary incident lightheartedly.
"They'd just barge in the room and be like, 'Harvin, you OK?'" he said. "And I'd be like, 'Um, I think so.' And they were like, 'Your heart wasn't beating.' So I was like, ‘What do you want me to do?'"
Luckily, the unfortunate situation caught Harvin’s sleep apnea diagnosis at 26 years old. For years, the Pro Bowler suffered from debilitating migraines — a symptom that sleep apnea therapy helped heal, too.
Harvin immediately began sleeping with a CPAP machine following his hospitalization on August 19, 2014, helping his migraine reduction rate decrease by nearly 80%.
"It's a 100 percent difference," Harvin said. "I'm not waking up groggy. I'm waking up feeling refreshed and ready to go. So like I said, hopefully that's it."
Aside from Harvin, former Pitt pass catcher and Biletnikoff Award honoree Larry Fitzgerald dealt with sleep apnea for the majority of his playing days, beginning during his two-year stint with the Panthers.
The lifetime Arizona Cardinal finished third in Heisman voting as a true sophomore, marked by hauling in 92 receptions for 1,672 yards and 22 touchdowns.
“I was waking up seven times throughout the night because of sleep apnea,” Fitzgerald said in a 2021 Podcast interview.
Now, with the addition of a medically-proven mouthpiece, modern technology has helped Fitzgerald “greatly improve” the quality of his rest.
For decades, the epidemic of sleep apnea diagnoses in football players has remained uncovered, largely because of the well-rounded health stigma set by professional athletes.
College football and NFL players are undoubtedly grouped as the world’s most athletic and highest-performing on-field talents, but with very few solutions for airway blockages due to bruising hits or prolonged contact, sleep apnea has long served as a byproduct of the job.
After continually ignoring the sensitive topic, it’s important that sleep apnea awareness in football players continues to receive the recognition it deserves. Not only for the sake of helping athletes obtain immediate relief but by also ultimately saving lives in the process.
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Shoutout to Connor Krause for helping to write this newsletter and putting it together!
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