Having trouble sleeping? Falling asleep, and staying asleep is a common problem with many people today. There are many reasons that can lead to trouble with sleeping, stress is one of the main causes is stress. There have been studies that show that sleep can reduce stress, which in turn could help with gaining better sleep quality.
While there are medications like melatonin and Benadryl that can aid with sleep, they are not always successful, they can lose effects over time, and they are not always available or safe for some people to take. For these reason and more the search for non-pharmacological methods to aid in sleep are increasing.
Exercise has proven affected to help relieve stress and because stress is a major factor in sleep loss there are studies testing what kinds of physical activities can help to improve sleep quality. There are multiple types of exercises that can be done, everything from yoga to resistance training to HIIT. All of these could be good for people depending on their what they feel comfortable with.
Researchers are trying to determine if there are ways to improve sleep by partaking in these different kinds of exercises. They went for a 12 week low to moderate intensity programs and tracked how their sleep progressed over the 12 weeks. There has been pervious research that showed aerobic exercise was effective to help manage anxiety and sleep in HD patients and taught that this could be proven effective in those were other sleep issues.
The results showed that there was a significant difference between the exercise and control groups. The SD results from all the studies that showed std. difference between the control and intradialytic exercise and exercise at other times. Both showed in favor of the experimental data. For three of the studies done they showed a positive result and for another it showed a negative result. This could be a result of the types of exercise or the people in the control group.
As a result the study did show that exercise could cause a positive impact on sleep quality, but that there is not complete proof that exercise can be effective for all people. There would need to be further research to determine if there is a correlation between exercise and sleep quality.
Hey Virginia, I really enjoyed your post!! I remember talking about this in our podcast. I can really relate to this post. Whenever I exercise and have a consistent routine, I always am able to sleep better and feel more rested the following day. The most prominent effect that I've noticed is After exercising It is much easier for me to fall asleep. Ive noticed that my recovery the next day after a workout is much lower if I did not sleep much. In this article on pubmed, I found that your prolactin levels are actually elevated during sleep, which is so interesting! Prolactin is one of your growth hormones. It is also elevated during daytime naps. Also, your Protein levels are increased during sleep, which makes sense why your recovery is lower the next day if you do not sleep well. After you work and micro tear your muscles during the day, your body rebuilds mostly during sleep.
ReplyDeleteCarley DW, Farabi SS. Physiology of Sleep. Diabetes Spectr. 2016 Feb;29(1):5-9. doi: 10.2337/diaspect.29.1.5. PMID: 26912958; PMCID: PMC4755451
This is a great post, Virginia. The association of exercise and sleep made me wonder if there is an ideal time to exercise to be maximizing sleep quality, as well as the known cardiovascular and metabolic benefits of exercise. Colloquially, if you ask around or look up to see what the best time of day to exercise is, you will get answers as early as 4AM to as late as 10PM, and anywhere in between. Formal research does not have any concrete answers either. However, there is some evidence that suggests that exercise can be used to "reset" the timing of the circadian system, and potentially counteract the effects of circadian disruption (Brito, 2011). This indicates that the time at which you exercise could also impact sleep quality. While more research needs to be done on this concept, it suggests that there may be an ideal time to exercise, but that ideal time may also vary from person to person.
ReplyDeleteBrito, L. C., Marin, T. C., Azevêdo, L., Rosa‐Silva, J. M., Shea, S. A., & Thosar, S. S. (2011). Chronobiology of exercise: Evaluating the best time to exercise for greater cardiovascular and metabolic benefits. Comprehensive Physiology, 12(3), 3621-3639.
Hello! This is a very interesting concept! I notice that the more I exercise in a day the more ready I am to sleep at night when my bedtime comes around (usually 11:00 pm). Although, I know that some people have difficulty sleeping even when they try exercising. In order to help people sleep who have disregulated circadian rhythms there is a newer type of treatment called chronotherapy (Lee et al., 2021). Chronotherapy involves many kinds of treatments such as chrono-phototherapy, chrono-diet, and in this case chrono-exercise (Lee et al., 2021). Chrono-exercise is working on exercising at certain times of the day to have the best health benefits (Lee et al., 2021). Most people have to exercise in the early morning and later night because of work and life conflicts and perhaps this is not as good. In a study on men with type II diabetes it showed that men who exercising in the early afternoon as compared to the morning had better exercise performance, glucose levels, and fat reductions (Lee et al., 2021). Although similar studies done on women have shown the opposite effect (Lee et al., 2021). This may be convuluted, but there is good research about simply staying on a schedule as well. Clinical evidence has showed good results in counteracting genetic and environmental circadian disruptions with scheduled exercise in general (Lee et al., 2021). More research needs to be done on the timing of exercise in conjunction with improved sleep, but we can see that this is important and possibly life changing for those who suffer sleep disruptions and disorders.
ReplyDeleteLee, Y., Field, J. M., & Sehgal, A. (2021). Circadian rhythms, disease and chronotherapy. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 36(6), 503–531. https://doi.org/10.1177/07487304211044301