Exercise and Sleep: New Research Reveals 3 Exercises to Help You Sleep Better

Regular exercise is one of the best ways to improve sleep quality. Sleep and physical activity are closely linked; good quality rest leads to better physical performance, whereas lack of either one tends to have a negative impact on the other.

In celebration of National Fitness Day, here are 5 of the latest research studies which have uncovered new insights about the relationship between sleep and exercise:

1. Netflix & Stretch: Try these resistance exercises while you watch TV for more sleep

Do you ever find yourself sitting for long periods of time before bed? Australian researchers investigated whether introducing gentle resistance exercises in the evening could improve sleep (Gale et al 2024).

This was a relatively small study with 28 participants. Every participant completed 2 separate sessions in the laboratory, 1 week apart, in a random order:

1. They sat for 4 hours from 5pm to 9pm, and watched television, worked or read in a seated position, before getting ready for bed.
2. They sat for 4 hours from 5pm to 9pm but every 30 minutes they got up and completed 3 minutes of resistance exercises. They spent 20 seconds on each exercise before moving onto the next one. The exercises were a chair squat (where you get up from a chair and sit down again), calf raises, and a standing knee raise with a straight leg hip extension (stand on one leg and lift your knee towards your chest, then straighten the leg and lower to the floor).

When it came to sleep, after the resistance exercises, participants slept an average of 27 minutes longer in total. There were no differences in time to fall asleep, or night-time awakenings. The researchers also found that the resistance exercises lowered blood glucose and insulin levels, suggesting that there were metabolic benefits to the resistance exercises.

This is just one study, and we need more research to confirm the findings, but it could be that gentle resistance exercises every 30 minutes, to break up the time spent chilling in front of the TV, could be enough to extend sleep.

2. What’s more effective: CBT-I, drugs or exercise for insomnia?

In a recent systematic review, which combined the results of 13 different randomized controlled trials, researchers investigated what type of intervention had the most reliable long term benefits for insomnia (Yu et al 2023 ). They compared CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia), exercise and pharmacotherapy (drugs). This analysis was unusual because it required follow up of at least 6 months post intervention, to explore longer term impact.

The researchers reported that both exercise and CBT-I were more effective than control group comparisons. The drug temazepam was effective in the short term, but not at 6 months follow up. This study adds to the evidence for CBT-I as a first line treatment for insomnia, but also supports exercise as an effective intervention.

3. What’s the best type of exercise for sleep? The case for pilates

What type of exercise is best for sleep? Researchers pooled the data from 27 different trials to estimate which type of exercise had the most positive effects on sleep quality in adults (Xie et al 2024 ).

The analysis found that yoga, pilates and traditional Chinese exercises such as tai chi had positive effects on sleep, when compared to a no-exercise control group. The most potent effects were found for pilates, which had a 95.3% improvement level.

The authors suggested that while multiple different exercise types might improve sleep, the most important element is to tailor exercise for the individual - if you enjoy it, you’re much more likely to repeat it.

4. How does sleep loss impact endurance performance?

All of the studies above explored the impact of exercise on sleep, but how much difference does sleep make to exercise performance?

In a review of 31 different studies, a research team from Brazil concluded that sleep deprivation had a moderate negative effect on endurance exercise performance (Lopez et al 2023). Effects were found for walking, running and cycling performance, regardless of the endpoint and assessment times. However, sleep loss had a stronger effect on longer lasting exercise, beyond 30 minutes.

The studies looked at untrained, recreationally trained, and trained participants, but the effects of sleep deprivation on well-trained and professional endurance athletes have not been reported.

Few studies have looked at the effects of more than one night of sleep deprivation, but studies to date suggest that one or more nights of partial sleep deprivation can cause similar effects to one night of total sleep deprivation.

5. Could exercise counteract the negative effects of sleep loss?

Adults are recommended to sleep for at least 7 hours per night for optimal health and wellbeing. If we sleep for less than that, the effects on the body include greater inflammation, higher blood pressure, a heightened stress response, and impaired immune function. Persistent short sleepers have a lower life expectancy than those who sleep for 7-9 hours.

Exercise is well known to reduce inflammation, and improve life expectancy, so, could exercise help to compensate or protect against the effects of short sleep?

Researchers examined data collected from over 92,000 adults in the UK, aged between 40 and 73 (Yan Liang et al 2023). All the participants spent a week wearing a wristband which measured how much they exercised and slept. Over the following 7 years, just over 3,000 participants died.

The researchers found that both short and long sleepers were at increased risk of death. However, people who exercised in line with physical activity guidelines did not have an increased risk of mortality, even when they only slept for 6 hours per night.

The study suggests that completing 150 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity every week might reduce some of the health consequences associated with sleeping too much or too little. This study was only observational - it can’t prove that exercise protects against the effects of sleep loss - but it is in line with previous short term studies which have found that exercise reduces cardiovascular and metabolic health risks.

Researchers were quick to emphasise that this doesn’t mean we should switch sleep time for exercise; in an ideal world, we get enough of both!