Being physically active can have significant benefits for mood and cognitive health. New research in Scientific Reports now shows that physical exercise can also substantially improve the quality of sleep.
The findings were released by the University of Tsukuba.
For the study, the effects of physical exercise were examined among nine healthy male participants in early adulthood, aged 20 to 30. All of the participants had a normal sleep/wake pattern and engaged in light exercise routines each week.
From the findings: “The present study investigated the acute effects of a single bout of high-intensity exercise on the subsequent sleep phase, as assessed by observation of the metabolic state, responses to a sleep questionnaire, sleep-stage scoring, EEG spectral analysis, and envelope (CVE) analysis of the EEG δ wave band.”
“To generalize the effects of exercise on sleep, future studies utilizing a different experimental design are warranted, including experiments with a larger sample size. Protocols using regular, chronic exercise with participants of different fitness levels should also be performed,” the authors concluded in their journal report.
