Credits: Social Media
New study trashes idea that you cant exercise before going to sleep
A new clinical trial has trashed the long-held belief you can’t exercise before bed, instead replacing it with easily doable resistance exercises over a period of four hours.
The world is exhausted and people are constantly looking for new ways to enhance their sleep quality, from the cocktail that is said to knock you out, to the perfect bedroom temperature for an easy night’s rest.
Exercising before bed isn’t as bad as we thought
Though logic suggests that tiring out your body in the evening would provide greater rest while sleeping, for years, experts have told us that it’s the exact opposite. A study published this week in the BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine journal seems to suggest otherwise.
If you’re one of the 75% of Americans who aren’t getting enough sleep, then you might be interested to learn that three-minute breaks every 30 minutes over 4 hours may be all thats needed.
To conduct their study, researchers asked participants to wear an activity tracker for 7 days. Over this period, participants took part in two four-hour sessions where they were asked to remain seated for one.
In the other session, they were asked to do a series of workouts every 30 minutes which included chair squats, calf raises, and standing knee raises. Each round lasted for 20 seconds, with each exercise completed three times.
Upon analyzing their data, the researchers found that participants had slept for an average of 27 minutes long each night. The average sleep duration for sitting down was 6 hours and 45 minutes compared with 7 hours and 12 minutes with resistance exercise.
Sleep efficiency did not change with exercise
Though an increase in sleep length was recorded, researchers were also pleased to report no difference in sleep efficiency. As such, there is no evidence to suggest that activity breaks disrupt sleep quality.
“These results add to a growing body of evidence that indicates evening exercise does not disrupt sleep quality, despite current sleep recommendations to the contrary,” the scientists said. Adults accrue the longest periods of sedentary time and consume almost half their daily energy intake during the evening, added to which insulin sensitivity is lower at this time.
Though this new piece of research provides a little hope for the sleep-deprived out there, more research is needed to truly explore the topic.
While existing research indicates that evening exercise may not adversely impact sleep, the mechanisms by which [it] influences sleep quality remain unclear,” they added.
