Health experts suggest that about 25% of American adults do not get enough sleep every night. Failure to log enough sleep can increase the risk of fatigue and make it harder to focus. Prolonged periods of insufficient sleep can also lead to the development of chronic health conditions.
A recent study from the University of Otago in New Zealand suggests that regular intervals of low-intensity resistance training in the evening may improve sleep. Researchers noted a link between short bursts of nightly strength training and an extra half hour of sleep. Although a lot of people engage in physical activity, a large percentage of the population does not. If those people only knew that they don’t need to exercise like crazy to improve sleep quality, they may be more inclined to exercise.
What Type Of Exercise Did The Study Look At?
The study authors determined that daytime exercise can promote better sleep. What researchers wanted to know is if performing short bouts of low-intensity exercise at night had similar benefits. Since people sit for the majority of the day, exercising at night may support better sleep. In order to answer this question, researchers recruited 28 people, mostly women, with an average age of 25.
Participants came into the lab for two sessions. During the first session, participants sat for four hours and watched TV. In the second session, they broke up that four-hour block of sitting with three minutes of resistance exercises every 30 minutes. Researchers had participants engage in squats, as that exercise uses the body’s largest muscles and does not require gym equipment or space.
Participants went home and researchers monitored their sleep remotely. Study authors found that when the participants sat all evening, they slept about 27 minutes less than when they did activity breaks. The extra sleep moved the majority of the participants’ sleep duration from below to within the recommended sleep guidelines. Researchers also found that sleep quality remained the same, which is a good finding. The reason for that is that previous studies found that exercising too late at night can disrupt sleep.
Does Nighttime Exercise Benefit Sleep?
As previously mentioned, the existing research about exercise’s effects on sleep shows varying results. Some studies suggest that exercising at night, especially if it is an intense workout, can make it more difficult to fall asleep. That is because intense movements can elevate body temperature and stress levels. A review from 2019 found that vigorous nighttime exercise potentially reduced nightly sleep. That was only if people engaged in that exercise within one hour of bedtime.
Another meta-analysis from 2022 found that any type of movement in the evening could potentially improve sleep quality and length. Low-intensity exercise, however, seemed to shorten sleep latency, i.e. the amount of time it takes to fall asleep. The new study cannot determine if short bouts of low-intensity exercise caused people to sleep more. The findings, however, indicate that this topic may need to be revisited for optimal sleep hygiene recommendations.
Finally, for people who tend to sit on the couch all evening, short bouts of exercise may be attainable. You do not need to rely on sleep medications when you can engage in five-minute exercise breaks every 30 minutes. Because the study mostly involved younger females, more research is necessary with different demographics to confirm the results across all ages and genders.
