Emily Chan
About one in seven adults in America say that they have a hard time falling asleep at night, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In addition, several studies have shown that a sedentary lifestyle leads to poor sleep quality. One in four Americans are affected by sedentary living.
After coming home from a long day at the office, the last thing anyone wants to do is work out. But if you want to get better sleep, there’s an easy exercise routine you can do in the evenings before settling into your bed.
“Current sleep guidelines discourage people from performing high-intensity exercise before they go to bed,” said Jennifer Gale, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
“One of the reasons it’s recommended to avoid high-intensity exercise before bed is because it can increase body temperature and heart rate, which can result in poor sleep quality.”
So, instead, you can engage in short bursts of low-intensity activity lasting for two to three minutes. These short bursts of exercise performed in the evening can help enhance the quality of your sleep.
In the study, 28 non-smoking participants up to 40 years old were instructed to complete two evening intervention sessions that each lasted four hours.
The first session consisted of prolonged sitting, while the second involved sitting that was interrupted by three-minute activity breaks every 30 minutes. During these breaks, participants would do chair squats, calf raises, and standing knee raises with straight-leg hip extensions.
These types of exercises were selected for their simplicity. They do not require much space or equipment to do. On average, the study participants ultimately slept 30 minutes longer after engaging in short bursts of evening exercise.
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