Actually, there are five ways to improve your sleep, and exercise is four of them.
It is widely known that sleep is important for health and longevity. Research from a study published last year on more than 170,000 adults showed that men who got enough sleep each night lived about 5 years longer than men who didn’t sleep enough. For women, regularly getting a good night’s sleep extended their lifespan by almost 2.5 years.
Although we know sleep is good for us, about 30% of adults cut their sleep short, increasing the risk of heart attacks, diabetes, dementia and other chronic conditions. Having a sleep schedule is very important for maintaining your health, but what do you do if you just can’t sleep?
First step, ditch the devices.
I am referring to the sleep trackers. Multiple studies on sleep trackers have shown that they can be wildly inaccurate, and they don’t matter as much as how you feel about your sleep quality.
Research on sleep trackers showed that how you feel about your sleep quality is more important to your well-being. Sleep trackers are not accurate measures of deep, quality sleep. A Sleep Medicine study says,
“Sleep trackers are unable to accurately discriminate stages of sleep.”
The second, third, fourth and fifth steps include exercise.
The only difference in these steps is what type of exercise you choose.
Until now the 5-25% of adults who report experiencing insomnia had only cognitive behaviour therapy as an effective therapy. New research published in the British Medical Journal evaluated 13 different treatments for insomnia and found that certain types of exercise are the answer.
What type of exercise is best for sleep?
Yoga, Tai Chi, walking and jogging made the biggest difference. Although their effects were also different from each other. Yoga increased total sleep time and sleep efficiency by 15%. Tai Chi improved sleep quality, increased total sleep time by more than 50 minutes, and reduced the time spent awake after falling asleep by more than 30 minutes.
Walking and jogging had the biggest impact on the severity of insomnia. Researchers believe this is due to increased energy expenditure, leading to reduced cortisol production, improved emotional regulation, and increased sleep hormone melatonin, all contributing to improving the amount of deep sleep time.
For a good night’s sleep, ditch the devices and choose a sleep-enhancing activity.
Change your mind, change your health,
Shayla
Eat better, live better and feel better.
Do you want to be your best at any age? Tired of feeling old and tired? You can make healthy changes at any age. It is not too late to put yourself on the "to-do list". Start looking better and feeling better right now.
Sign up to start changing how you feel about your age today!