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You don’t like exercising? What the scientists have found, however, may convince you of the chosen physical activities. It turns out that some exercise can help you sleep longer by up to five hours a week. See how to do it.
Lack of sleep affects your health
Not getting enough sleep can be detrimental to our health. It has been linked to weight gain, high cholesterol and blood pressure, diabetes and inflammation, among other things. All of these can increase your risk of stroke, heart attack and premature death.
Unfortunately, in the current situation, many people complain about problems with falling asleep. Stress, uncertainty, racing thoughts – these feelings and states accompany us every day. In addition, there is an intense lifestyle and ubiquitous external stimuli. This is the easy path to insomnia.
Scientists come to the rescue, however. It turns out that there is a set of exercises to help you fall asleep faster and improve the quality and duration of your sleep.
- See also: Insomnia is the bane of Poles. How to take care of a healthy sleep?
Further part below the video.
Exercise for a good night’s sleep
To find out how exercise can improve sleep, experts divided the nearly 400 overweight people into four groups. The first did not do any exercise, the second did aerobic exercise such as running or cycling, the third did strength (resistance) training, and the fourth combined aerobic and resistance exercise.
Participants in the experiment exercised for three hours a week for a year, as agreed at the American Heart Association Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Conference. All participants also reported the quality and duration of sleep, and the amount of time spent in bed.
The results showed that at the beginning of the study, 35 percent. people slept badly. Experts looked at how long it took for them to fall asleep and sleep disturbed – such as snoring, coughing or needing to use the toilet.
Research has shown that one form of exercise significantly improved sleep quality.
“While both aerobic and resistance exercise are important to overall health, our results suggest that the latter may be better for optimal nighttime rest,” said study author Dr. Angelique Brellenthin of Iowa State University in the US .
People who did strength training increased their sleep by 40 minutes a day over a 12-month period. Those who did aerobic exercise got 23 more minutes of sleep. And the people who performed their combination, 17 minutes more. The group that did not exercise at all also had better sleep as they spent 15 minutes longer in bed.
“If your sleep has deteriorated significantly in the past two stressful years, consider incorporating a few strength training sessions into your regular workouts. This way you will improve the overall condition of your muscles and bones. Above all, it will also have a positive effect on your sleep »says Dr. Brellenthin, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology.
Do you feel stressed, do you sleep worse, are you nervous? Try ashwagandha, which is called Indian ginseng
- This may interest you: The mistakes you make while you sleep. You weaken your heart this way
How to do resistance training?
During the study described above, participants had a well-written exercise plan. Each of their training sessions lasted an hour and mobilized all of the muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest and arms). Participants performed 8 to 16 repetitions of each exercise in three series. These included crunches, back stretching, torso twists, hip abduction, exercises on a leg and arm press, or leg stretching.
On the other hand, people from the aerobic group, who also noticed improved sleep, used treadmills, exercise bikes and cross trainers for three hours a week.
In the mixed group, people did 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity aerobic exercise. Then they performed two sets of 8-16 repetitions of resistance exercises on nine machines.
We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time we were wondering why switching our thinking and acting to slow life is a real challenge? Why is listening to your needs so important? What will it do for us? You will hear about it below.
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- Sleeping without a pillow – good or bad for your health?
- Walking helps you lose weight and get rid of the meninges. How to do it?
- 10 common habits that destroy the human brain Are you doing it too?