Working out makes for a better night's sleep, new research indicates.
According to the National Sleep Foundation's Sleep in America poll, people who claimed to have exercised said they slept better than those who did not, even in cases where they got the same amount of sleep.
"We found that exercise and great sleep go together," Max Hirshkowitz, sleep researcher and chair of the poll task force, said. "We also found a step-wise increase in how vigorous the quality is, in terms of how much you exercise. So if you say you exercise a lot, we found better sleep quality. For people who don't exercise at all we found more sleep problems."
The poll sampled a group of 1,000 adults between the ages of 23 and 60. Members of the group were considered physically active if they exercised for at least 10 minutes over the course of the previous seven days. The participants were then broken into four different groups relating to activity: vigorous, moderate, light activity and no activity. Vigorous exercisers were two times more likely than non-exercisers to say that they had a "good night's sleep." Additionally, non-exercisers reported fairly common instances of insomnia. Non-exercisers were also shown to be sleepiest during the day.
This would seem to make exercise an enticing prospect for non-exercisers seeking to get more shut-eye.
"If you are inactive, adding a 10 minute walk every day could help improve your likelihood of a good night's sleep," Hirshkowitz says. "Making this small change and gradually working your way up to more intense activities like running or swimming could help you sleep better."
A surprising result was that the time participants exercised did not seem to affect the quality of sleep. Experts told USA Today that people should go with whatever time works best for them.
"Your body is meant to move," University of Pennsylvania sleep researcher Michael Grandner told USA Today. "Getting the right type and amount of movement helps your body do what it was built to do, and that includes sleeping."
