Some studies have shown that doing activities before bed can actually promote good sleep - Photo: New York Post
That's the main conclusion from a new study published in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine. Researchers gave participants two four-hour evening sessions.
In which they either sit still for the entire time or sit and exercise for three minutes every half hour.
The effect of exercise on sleep
The exercises are very simple. Participants perform chair squats, calf raises, and standing knee raises.
The study found that participants slept 30 minutes longer after they did the exercises, compared to when they simply sat still for four hours straight.
"These simple self-paced exercises were chosen because they don't require equipment or much space, and you can do them without interrupting the TV show you're watching," said Meredith Peddie, principal investigator of the study and senior lecturer in the department of human nutrition at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Jennifer Gale, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in human nutrition at the University of Otago, agrees, saying: "The important thing here is that any disruption to evening sitting time is better than none at all."
She points out that at night, people often slow down their activities, whether it's reading, chatting with family or watching TV, and adding short periods of activity helps break up this process and promote good sleep.
Conventional wisdom holds that exercising before bed will make you feel more energized and make it harder to fall asleep. But some studies have shown that doing something active before bed can actually help you sleep better.
A meta-analysis published in the journal Sports Medicine analyzed data from 23 studies and found that people who exercised in the evening seemed to fall asleep faster and spend more time in deep sleep than those who didn't exercise at night.
There is one caveat, however. People who do high-intensity exercise, such as interval training, less than an hour before bedtime take longer to fall asleep and end up with poorer sleep quality.
Good sleep improves health
"We know that exercise both increases the desire to sleep and increases the amount of sleep," says W. Christopher Winter, PhD, a neurologist and sleep medicine physician with Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and host of the Sleep Unplugged podcast.
Winter points out that exercise can also cause your body to release feel-good chemicals called endorphins, as well as increase your body temperature. Both of these signal to your body that it's time to wake up.
However, endorphin levels tend to drop back an hour or two after exercise, while body temperature starts to drop 30 to 90 minutes after exercise. This can make you feel sleepy, he says.
“The key is to find a balance and not cross the line where exercise keeps you awake,” says Winter. He notes that all of the exercises in the latest study focused on the legs and lower extremities, which could be especially helpful for people with restless legs syndrome, a condition that causes a strong urge to move the legs, especially at night.
Gale says more research is needed to understand why a little movement at night can help promote better sleep, which she notes could also lead to better health. “The fact that exercise leads to longer sleep is important, because too little sleep is associated with an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes,” she says.
Any movement when you know you're going to be sitting for a long time is important, Gale says, "ideally moving every 30 minutes, with two to three minutes of activity." Calf raises and squats, as the study participants did, are helpful.
However, Gale also notes that other exercises can be effective. "You can get the same benefits from walking around the house, doing some jumping jacks, or dancing in your living room," she says.
Winter also supports the idea of moving around during long periods of sitting before bed, as long as the activity isn't too vigorous.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/tap-the-duc-nhanh-vao-ban-dem-giup-ngu-ngon-hon-20240718045642775.htm
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