A ground-breaking new study reported in the BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine journal suggests that your bedtime routine could use a shake-up with specific exercises to boost your sleep quality.
Researchers have made a remarkable discovery that performing “activity breaks” throughout the evening can significantly extend your slumber time.
This goes against the grain of common wisdom which advises against intense physical activity before sleep due to its tendency to raise body temperature and quicken heart rates.
The study highlights resistance training as a game-changer for enhancing sleep duration. A modest four hours of doing three-minute bursts of such activities every half hour before turning in appears to be the secret recipe for sleep success, say researchers.
Incorporating chair squats, calf raises, knee lifts with straight leg hip extensions into your nightly script each exercise done for 20 seconds has been shown to offer a sleep bonus of an extra 27 minutes, according to the study’s activity-based approach, leaving those snooze-less sedentary evenings behind.
The study recruited 30 non-smoking individuals aged between 18 and 40, all of whom spent over five hours a day in sedentary activities and up to two hours in the evening. The participants were equipped with activity trackers that monitored their movements for seven consecutive days, recording details such as sleep and wake times and activities inaccurately identified by trackers, like yoga.
Once a week, the participants were brought into a controlled lab environment to participate in various activities to assess their impact on sleep, returning to their normal routines after each four-hour session. In one session, they were asked to sit for the entire duration, while another session required them to perform three exercises for three minutes every half hour.
Following the extended sitting session, the average sleep duration was six hours and 45 minutes, while the sessions with activity breaks resulted in an average sleep duration of seven hours and 12 minutes. This pushed the group’s average sleep time just above the recommended seven hours per night.
Importantly, there was no significant difference in sleep efficiency, or uninterrupted sleep, indicating that being active before bed did not disrupt their sleep.
Researchers have conceded the shortcomings of their investigation, noting the limited number of participants and the artificial lab setting for exercise that doesn’t mirror everyday activity. They underlined the necessity of more expansive research over extended durations to authentically discern the influence of physical activity on sleep patterns.
Nevertheless, they commented: “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. 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.”