Staying active when you’re tired
The study raises a practical question: If you don’t get the proper amount of sleep, how are you supposed to find the time, energy, and motivation to exercise?
The solution is to use one to fix the other.
Exercise and sleep have “a robust directional relationship,” Dr. Zhang said. Exercise improves sleep, while better sleep makes it easier to stick with an exercise program.
Ideally, that program will include a mix of cardio and resistance exercise, said Mitch Duncan, PhD, a professor of public health at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
As Dr. Duncan and his co-authors showed in a recent study, “the largest benefits to health occur when people do a combination of both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity,” Dr. Duncan said.
“In terms of benefits to sleep, there doesn’t seem to be consistent evidence that favors either as being most effective.”
The timing or intensity of exercise doesn’t seem to matter much, either.
“But there is evidence that a greater duration contributes to larger improvements in sleep,” Dr. Duncan said.
In other words, longer workouts are generally better, but they don’t necessarily have to be super-intense.
The strongest evidence of all, however, shows that recent and regular exercise offer the biggest benefits at bedtime.
Today’s workout will improve tonight’s sleep. And the better you sleep tonight, the more likely you are to stick with the program.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.