If you are in serious need of some extra sleep, then there may be a way to have a better bed time. A major new study has turned the pillow on the idea that late night exercise keeps you awake, meaning you could get significantly more shut-eye by simply swapping around your workout sessions. The report published in BMJ Journals, sought to find out whether prolonged sitting, or regular evening activities would deliver the best sleep.
It’s a worthy question to explore, since a lack of good quality sleep is associated with a range negative outcome such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Advice around whether to exercise before we hit the hay has been mixed in recent years, but many experts have tried to dissuade people from getting their sweat on right before sleep because heightened body temperatures may negate our ability to nod off.
“The evening period is a prime time to target behaviours that influence cardiometabolic health,” explained the aims of the report. “Adults accrue the longest periods of uninterrupted sitting and consume almost half their daily energy intake during this time.”
How was the study carried out?
For this sleep study, 28 women were split into two groups. One group remained seated in the evening for 4-hours, while the other group had this sedentary period interrupted by 3 minutes of bodyweight resistance exercises every half-hour. Each individual was then assessed to determine their resulting sleep quantity and quality.
What were the results?
“Performing bodyweight resistance exercise activity breaks in the evening has the potential to improve sleep period and total sleep time and does not disrupt other aspects of sleep quality or subsequent 24-hour physical activity,” explained the sleep study authors.
What this means is that exercising in the evening not only prolonged sleep, but it also didn’t de-motivate individuals the following day. The group who was active in the evening saw their sleep duration increase by a significant average of 27 minutes.
“Sleep hygiene recommendations should be reviewed to better reflect the current pool of evidence,” concluded the groundbreaking report. “Regularly interrupting prolonged sitting with short bouts of activity breaks is a promising intervention that may improve cardiometabolic health through multiple mechanisms.”
Since only for short bursts of 3 minutes were needed to improve sleep durations, you don’t necessarily need to swap your gym sessions from AM to PM, but by adding a total of 12 minutes of working out to your bedtime routine, you may improve the quality and quantity of your sleep, meaning that both you and your snooze button may soon become better rested.
