(NewsNation) — Brief spurts of exercise in the evening can help you sleep for just under 30 minutes, according to a study published Tuesday in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine.
Researchers at New Zealand’s University of Otago oversaw 28 participants who performed three-minute bouts of bodyweight exercises every 30 minutes across a four-hour period, approximately starting at 5 p.m.
Participants also did the inverse; prolonged sitting for the evening without the exercise bouts, measuring the sleep quality and quantity of both approaches.
The findings were that with exercise, time spent asleep increased by 27.7 minutes and mean sleep period time was up 29.3 minutes on the sedentary approach.
Sleep efficiency was not markedly improved, number of times to wake or wake after sleep onset from exercise.
Despite the widespread belief that exercise before bed can affect sleep, the study found sleep quality was not affected by the three-minute exercise efforts every 30 minutes across four hours in the evening.
“These results add to a growing body of evidence that indicates evening exercise does not disrupt sleep quality, despite current sleep recommendations to the contrary,” the researchers noted in the study discussion.
“Adults accrue the longest periods of sedentary time and consume almost half their daily energy intake during the evening, added to which insulin sensitivity is lower at this time.”