New research finds that taking a break from the couch-potato life to do simple exercises before bed can help you sleep about a half hour longer. The old thinking is that vigorous exercise before bedtime will raise your heart rate and body temperature, making it difficult to fall asleep.
In the research we analyzed, we studied 28 non-smoking adults up to 40 years old. The participants clocked more than five hours of sedentary time at their day job and two hours in the evening. The 28 participants were asked to wear a fitness tracker for seven consecutive days, in which they also recorded when they went to bed, when they woke up and when they participated in activities that may not have been picked up by the tracker, such as using a stationary bike or doing yoga.
In one session, participants remained seated the entire time, starting at around 5 p.m. In the other, they interrupted their rest with three minutes of simple resistance exercises every 30 minutes over the four hours. Each three-minute “activity break” included three rounds of three exercises – chair squats, calf raises and standing knee raises with straight leg hip extensions for 20 seconds each.
The idea behind this is that moving around reduces the amount of sugar and fat in the bloodstream after a meal. when participants did the exercises, they slept an average of 27 minutes more than when they spent the four hours sitting. The average sleep duration was 7 hours and 12 minutes, versus 6 hours and 45 minutes. Participants didn’t change their bedtimes, but their average wake times differed. It was 7:35 AM after the prolonged sitting and 8:06 AM after the activity breaks.
Would you consider trying this method before bed? If you decide to try it out DM us @YmsRadio on socials!