View 2 slides

Never Do This One Exercise Before Bed

Finding the time to exercise in your day is important as you get older, even in cases where you lead a busy life. That said, it doesn’t mean that any time is a good time to be working out.

Experts have said in the past that exercising at night will have negative effects on our lifestyle, since it affects our sleep.

However there is one kind of exercise in particular that’s especially harmful to our bodies.

Avoid Strenuous Exercises Before Going To Bed

Experts have said that some exercise before bed is fine, however you want to avoid going overboard with your training regimen. We’ll cover what kinds of exercise before bed is good in a bit, but for now it’s worth knowing why you should avoid strenuous workout this late.

According to those at Sleep.org, “Engaging in strenuous exercise in the 90 minutes before sleeping will make falling asleep harder”.

This claim is backed by a study as well. A study was published on Oct. 2018 and it was found that exercise in the evening isn’t that much of an issue. What is an issue is the intensity and when you’re planning to go to bed.

The study concludes that “strenuous exercise more likely disturbs our sleep by giving us energy for a period of time. It’s generally best to minimize major exercise if you’re going to bed in a few hours.”

You Need Time To Recover

Exercising at any other point is fine, but working out 90 minutes before sleeping isn’t the greatest. On the sleep perspective, Sleep.org has stated that your body and mind need at least 90 minutes to cool down from strenuous activities or workout. So things like an aerobic workout isn’t good for you that late as those exercises are designed to boost your energy levels and increase endorphins.

Even if those things are helpful for our overall health, they’re not ideal when we’re trying to fall asleep.

Sleep specialists have also chimed in about this and noted that exercising also gives us a jolt of energy through the hormone cortisol. It’s a hormone that’s great in increasing our energy levels, though it’s clearly not helpful when trying to get great sleep, since it promotes waking up or staying up.

Overall, if you exercise too close to your bedtime, you’ll risk having higher levels of blood cortisol, which will make it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep too.

It’s such a common occurrence that sleep scientists have a name for it: runner’s insomnia. Note that this isn’t exclusive to just running.