Effects of Burnout Tendencies on Cortisol Awakening Response in Athletes

Abstract

Recently, the cortisol awakening response (CAR) has been focused as an index of chronic stress. Chronic, accumulated stress through burnout is known to result in uncontrollable HPA axis stress responses that cause abnormal CAR. However, the effects of burnout tendency on CAR in athletes remain unclear. This study examined the effect of burnout tendency on CAR in athletes. Participants were top-level female university athletes (N=45). Among them, the results of 40 participants were analyzed after excluding five participants that experienced measurement problems. The burnout tendency was evaluated using the Athletic Burnout Inventory (ABI). The participants were classified into the High BO group (N=12) with high burnout scores and the Low BO group (N=28) with low burnout scores. They were instructed to collect saliva at home, just after waking up, as well as 15 minutes, and 30 minutes later. The concentration of cortisol in saliva was estimated using the Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (ELISA). The results revealed higher CAR and AUCG tendencies in the High BO group compared to the Low BO group. However, this possibility has not been sufficiently supported statistically in the current study. We should revalidate these findings by ensuring an adequate number of samples estimated from the effect size. These findings indicate a new physiological index for assessing burnout tendency, which could contribute to better understanding the physiological mechanisms of burnout onset.