Exercise Tips for Better Sleep

Using Exercise as a Natural Sleep Remedy

Did you know that how well you sleep at night is directly related to how active you are during the day? The more sedentary your lifestyle is, the more likely it is that you will also have sleeping problems.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way, and you don’t have to become a “gym junkie” to get the sleep benefits of exercise. Sleep experts suggest that as little as 20 to 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day will go a long way toward getting rid of insomnia from your life.

How Does Exercise Help You Sleep Better?

One of the main ways that exercise helps you sleep better is through the effect that it has on your body temperature. Since your body temperature needs to be lower for you to sleep well, experts believe that by exercising before bed time the cooling off period afterward actually prepares you for sleep. The catch is that you need to be careful what type of exercise you do, or you could find yourself wide awake instead of ready to nod off.

The second way exercise affects our sleep patterns is by acting as a stress reliever. Researchers have discovered that people with insomnia often have elevated amounts of stress hormones such as cortisol in their blood. Even though these hormones increase while you’re exercising, the long term effect is that they actually lower over time. Hours after your exercise session is over, your stress hormone levels will be even lower than if you had not exercised at all.

What Kind of Exercise Works Best?

The best type of exercise to use as a sleep remedy is aerobic exercise. Done early enough in the day, it will have the stress-relieving effect I talked about earlier. The two schools of thought on when this should be are first thing in the morning, and mid- to late afternoon. Experimenting with both is really the only way to figure out which time will give you the best results.

As for what type of aerobic exercise is best, that is totally up to you. Anything that you enjoy that gets your heart rate up for 20 to 30 minutes is the best. This could be walking, jogging, taking an aerobics class or even doing yard work. The more you enjoy it, the easier it will be to keep active on a consistent basis. There is one study that suggests that choosing activities which make strenuous use of your leg muscles is best because this has a tranquilizer effect that can help you sleep better.

For mild, pre-bedtime exercise you can try activities such as yoga and stretching. The body positions and breathing techniques used in yoga will help to slow down both body and brain and get you relaxed and ready for sleep.

Tai Chi is another form of exercise that has been shown to have a positive effect on sleep. In a 2005 study, participants who did Tai Chi for one hour three times a week improved their sleep quality and decreased daytime drowsiness. The authors of the study speculated that the main benefit was a modification of the participants circadian rhythms through relaxation and breathing.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what type of exercise you choose to do. Simply making regular physical exercise a part of your daily routine allows you to harness its effects as a natural sleep remedy.

As always, remember to talk things over with your health care provider, before starting an exercise program, especially if you have other health challenges that you are dealing with.

Here’s to a good night’s sleep!

Image Credit: Morgue File

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