Will moderate exercise at night disturb your sleep? Original paper

Acute, nighttime, moderate exercise didn’t affect sleep in people with diagnosed insomnia, though two of the participants did experience worsened sleep.

This Study Summary was published on October 3, 2021.

Background

Current sleep hygiene recommendations suggest that exercising near bedtime may disrupt normal circadian rhythms, but the evidence is mixed.

The study

This randomized, crossover trial examined the effects of acute, nighttime, moderate exercise on the sleep of 12 adults (aged 27 on average) with diagnosed insomnia.

After a 1-week baseline, the participants completed two interventions, 2–5 days apart: exercise (30 minutes of walking or running at 60–70% of maximum heart rate followed by 15 minutes of moderate-intensity resistance training) and control (quiet reading for 45 minutes). Both interventions ended 2 hours before the participant’s customary bedtime.

The results

Compared to the control intervention, the exercise intervention neither improved nor impaired sleep overall; however, two participants did experience disturbed sleep postexercise. This weakly suggests that people with severely disturbed sleep may be prone to sleep impairment after nighttime exercise. Studies with larger sample sizes and that include older people with insomnia are needed to generalize these findings.

Note

A meta-analysis of 15 randomized summarized here found that high-intensity exercise in the evening disrupted REM sleep but not other objective measures of sleep quality in healthy people without sleep disorders.[1]

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This Study Summary was published on October 3, 2021.

References

  1. ^Emmanuel Frimpong, Melodee Mograss, Tehila Zvionow, Thien Thanh Dang-VuThe effects of evening high-intensity exercise on sleep in healthy adults: A systematic review and meta-analysisSleep Med Rev.(2021 Aug 3)