Jul 17, 2024 23:00:00

It turns out that doing a little exercise before bed can help you sleep longer

Many sleep guidelines

state that people should not engage in long-term, high-intensity exercise several hours before going to bed. However, a research team from the University of Otago has reported that doing light exercise such as chair squats and calf raises before going to bed may extend sleep time by up to 30 minutes and reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Evening regular activity breaks extend subsequent free-living sleep time in healthy adults: a randomized crossover trial | BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine
https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/10/3/e001774

Unlocking Better Sleep With Simple Evening Activities

https://scitechdaily.com/unlocking-better-sleep-with-simple-evening-activities/

Jennifer Gale of the University of Otago's Department of Human Nutrition has previously argued that 'sitting for long periods of time increases the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and death,' and has reported research results showing that 'standing up every 30 minutes and doing light exercise for 2-3 minutes reduces the amount of sugar and fat in the bloodstream after a meal.'

'Traditional sleep guidelines say you shouldn't engage in long, intense exercise in the hours before bedtime because it raises your body temperature and heart rate, so we wanted to see what would happen if you engaged in repeated short, light bouts of exercise at night,' Gale added.

Gale and his research team conducted two interventions on 28 subjects. In the first intervention, subjects were instructed to continue sitting for four hours from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. In the second intervention, subjects were instructed to do three minutes of bodyweight training every 30 minutes from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. During the experiment, the subjects were fitted with an ActiGraph accelerometer ' wGT3X-BT ' on their wrists.

According to research team member Meredith Peddie, the bodyweight exercises instructed to the subjects were chair squats, calf raises, standing knee raises, etc. These exercises were chosen because they do not require equipment or a large space and can be done while watching TV.

The results showed that participants who did 3 minutes of bodyweight training every 30 minutes and then slept increased their average sleep time by 29.3 minutes compared to the average sleep time when they were sitting for long periods of time. However, there was no significant effect on average sleep efficiency, wakefulness or number of awakenings during sleep, and no significant differences were found in physical activity patterns over the 24 and 48 hours following the experiment.

Previous research has suggested that lack of sleep can negatively impact dietary habits and increase the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, so the finding that exercise increases sleep time is an important health benefit.

The research team concluded, 'Our results suggest that taking a break with weight training before bedtime can improve sleep duration without adversely affecting sleep quality or physical activity over the following 24 hours.' 'Future research is needed to explore the long-term effects of exercise before bedtime on sleep,' they said.

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