Boost Sleep Quality: Reset Body Clock with Exercise

Exercise regulations circadian rhythms, reduces stress, and enhances physiological functions like melatonin production and autonomic balance, thus improving your sleep quality and helping treat sleep disorders.

Review: The impact of exercise on sleep and sleep disorders. Image Credit: Lysenko Andrii / Shutterstock

A recent review in the journal npj Biological Timing and Sleep summarizes how structured physical activity or exercise benefits both individuals with sleep disorders and those in good health. Factors such as age, sex, fitness level, and the type, timing, and intensity of exercise influence these benefits.

Understanding Exercise Types

Exercise, a form of repetitive, planned, and structured physical activity, comes in several forms. Aerobic exercises like swimming, cycling, and walking utilize the body’s large muscle groups, boosting heart rate and oxygen usage.

On the other hand, anaerobic exercises such as sprinting and weight training build muscle strength and mass. Studies show mixed results on whether stretching exercises, aimed at improving range of motion, can prevent injuries.

The article also notes different forms of exercise can influence sleep differently, with aerobic exercises generally offering the most quality sleep benefits.

Health Benefits of Exercise

Regular exercise plays a crucial role in weight control, reducing obesity risk, and supporting weight loss by balancing calorie expenditure and intake. Exercise also lowers the risk of diabetes, hypertension, and depression while enhancing cardiovascular health, heart recovery, and resting heart rate.

Additionally, exercise improves mood and energy levels by enhancing nutrient and oxygen delivery to tissues. Exercise can reduce stress hormone cortisol levels associated with sleep disturbances while increasing sleep-regulating melatonin levels. Lack of adequate exercise can result in chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, leading causes of global mortality.

Exercise and Sleep Quality Enhancement

Exercise improves sleep efficiency in healthy individuals, defined as the time a person spends sleeping relative to the total time they spend in bed. Exercise, particularly 4 to 8 hours before bedtime, reduces wakefulness during sleep and hastens sleep onset. However, exercising less than four hours before bedtime may delay melatonin release and increase body temperature, negatively affecting sleep onset.

Over time, exercise promotes good sleep hygiene, leading to stable sleep-wake cycles and improved regulation of the body’s circadian rhythms. Exercise can help reset disrupted circadian rhythms in individuals with sleep disturbances due to shift work or jet lag. Regular and consistent exercise also reduces stress, depression, and anxiety, promoting sleep quality by calming the body and regulating sleep pattern-related hormones like cortisol and melatonin.

Exercise in Treating Sleep Disorders

Exercise benefits extend to alleviating sleep disorders by reducing emotional stress and anxiety, improving autonomic and hormonal imbalances that worsen sleep quality. Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can benefit people with insomnia, improving sleep onset, reducing wakefulness time, and enhancing overall sleep quality. Combining exercise with sleep hygiene interventions like maintaining a consistent bedtime and avoiding pre-sleep stimulants can prove more effective.

Restless leg syndrome (RLS) sufferers, who experience an uncontrollable urge to move their legs, can benefit from aerobic exercises, reducing symptoms like leg throbbing, aching, and itching. Improved blood circulation and neuromuscular function could explain this benefit. People suffering from sleep apnea, characterized by repeated stopping and starting of breathing during sleep, are advised to combine weight loss with exercise to alleviate the condition’s severity and improve daily functioning and wakefulness.

Future Research Directions

While existing studies on exercise and sleep are promising, the review identifies future investigation areas. Long-term studies are needed to understand how exercise duration, intensity, and type impact sleep patterns. Research should include diverse populations to identify effective, tailored interventions for different demographic groups. More research into the molecular mechanisms underlying exercise effects on sleep, such as its impact on brain function and immune responses, is needed.

Physical activity should be promoted as a non-pharmacological intervention for the general public, but clear guidelines should be provided for different age groups regarding exercise intensity, frequency, and timing. The researchers stressed personalized exercise prescriptions that account for an individual’s age, fitness level, and existing sleep disturbances to maximize benefits.