What Is The Exercise-Sleep Connection?
If you’re not waking up well-rested, chances are your exercise-sleep cycle is messed up. If this concept is new for you, then you need to understand how one impacts the other.
According to stats, 70% Americans struggle with poor sleep, deteriorating memory and declining cognitive function. However, regular exercise can easily solve this.
In fact, a study conducted on the exercise-sleep connection reveals that aerobic exercises and other physical activities don’t just exhaust you in a good way – they also help you feel fresher post-wake up time.
With regular workouts, you’re likely to experience deep sleep stage, which allows your mind and body to recover from all the stresses and grow muscle. In this guide, you’ll discover the 5 reasons why working out improves your sleep, giving you a better understanding of the exercise-sleep connection.
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In A Glance…
Here’s why working out helps you sleep better:
- Produces Melatonin: Working out regularly generates melatonin, improving your sleep-wake cycle for deeper sleep.
- Regulates Stress and Anxiety: Consistent training lowers your stress hormones, relaxing your mind into sleeping.
- Improves Mood: The release of endorphins from working out uplifts your mood and makes you feel positive in general.
- Regulates Body Temperature: First, it ramps up your body temperatures then brings it down, notifying your body that it’s time to sleep.
- Promotes Daytime Alertness and Nighttime Fatigue: You’re able to develop a healthy and well-balanced sleep-wake cycle with consistent workouts.
5 Reasons Why Working Out Is Essential For Better Sleep
1. Produces Melatonin
Working out regularly promotes melatonin production in your body. Melatonin is a hormone that manages your sleep-wake cycle, signaling your body when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to get up.
With your melatonin well-regulated, you’re going to naturally feel drowsy and sleepy when your body needs rest. As a result, you’ll fall into deep slumber as well, rather than having that quick-to-wake kind of sleep.
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2. Regulates Stress and Anxiety
Don’t you feel relieved from all your stress and worries after a good, high intensity workout session? One of the main reasons why this happens is because working out reduces the stress hormones in your body. This helps you deal with your anxiety and improve your mental health, which often prevents you from relaxing into a deep slumber.
With lower stress levels, your mind and body are completely relaxed. This prepares you physically into falling asleep.
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3. Improves Mood
If there’s one way to feel good instantly (or at least within 30-60 minutes depending on how your stamina is), then it’s a good workout sesh. Whether it’s with lifting weights on the cable, taking a Pilates class at the gym or hitting the treadmill, working out releases endorphins in your body.
This chemical is like a natural pain killer and immediately uplifts your mood, making you feel better. With a better mood, you’re less likely to have a disturbed sleeping routine. Your mood is also likely to be more stable, reducing anxiety, depression and improving your overall sleep.
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4. Regulates Body Temperature
When you’re working out, your heart rate goes up, blood flow improves and sweat drops out – all the while heating your body up. It’s like revving up and engine and getting it to roar! Once your body temperature shoots up during your workout, it drops down gradually afterwards.
This body temperature decline allows you to fall asleep effortlessly. The cooling effect notifies your body to sleep, helping in the natural thermoregulation metho d for a deep sleep.
Once you’re done with your workout, always go for a quick cool down routine or meditate to calm your breathing and relax!
5. Promotes Daytime Alertness and Nighttime Fatigue
When you’re working out regularly, your sleep-wake cycle becomes a lot more stable. This is because as your body produces melatonin, you naturally feel sleepy around nighttime. This means you’re getting a goodnight’s sleep, staying active and energized during the daytime.
Not only do you sleep well at night, you’re also less likely to experience fatigue, drowsiness, lethargy, low energy levels or headaches in the morning. This automatically boosts your productivity levels, improving your focus and performance throughout the day.
Incorporate upper body and lower body workouts along with Yoga or Pilates to stay alert and lethargy-free!
To Sum It Up
If you’re struggling to get a goodnight’s sleep, there’s chances something’s wrong with what you’re doing. It’s best to sit back and deep dive into your daily habits. List out all the things you do that could affect your sleep (other than not working out) such as consuming caffeine close to bedtime, glaring at your screen or smoking too much.
It is important to understand that our bodies are designed to sleep better and exercise more. Both reinforce each other for you to live a better and happier life. Exercise-sleep cycle is more important than before. Therefore, make sure an unbalanced cycle is not interfering with the quality of your life.
FAQs
Yes, it’s completely fine to workout right after waking up. In fact, most people prefer kicking their day off with some sort of physical activity to feel energized. This is because exercise in the morning lifts their mood and makes them feel positive for the remainder of the day. In addition, with exercise in the morning, you’re likely to balance out your sleep-wake cycle, stay alert during the day and sleep as the evening arrives. It’s important to always warm up before a workout to prevent injuries.
There are several ways in which regular exercise helps with your sleep. This includes:
- Helping your body generate melatonin (the sleep hormone) so you’re able to fall asleep effortlessly and fall deep into slumber.
- Reducing stress and anxiety levels, allowing your brain and body both to relax into deep sleep.
- Elevating your overall mood, helping you feel better in general as it releases endorphins in your body.
- Regulating your body temperatures by increasing them during workout and reducing them in the post-workout phase, allowing you to sleep at the right time.
Yes, with adequate exercise, your REM sleep will improve. This is the stage of your sleep related to dreams, consolidating memory and processing emotions. Those who workout consistently have long and more stable REM sleep patterns. It is commonly believed that REM sleep improves because of an overall improvement in your sleep quality due to working out, which balances out your sleep cycles.
An average adult should go for mid-intensity physical activity such as aerobic, brisk walking or light jogging for an estimate of 150 minutes or intense activity for 75 minutes at least, spread throughout 3-4 days. When it comes to sleep, getting 7-9 hours of sleep every night will help you relax and recharge, allowing you to stay healthy and functional throughout the day.
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