Want to improve the quality of your sleep? Taking a yoga class or some other form of gentle exercise can make a major difference.
Researchers say yoga, Tai Chi, walking, and jogging may be the best types of exercise to improve sleep quality and ease insomnia. Insomnia, or an inability to fall asleep, affects some 25 to 30 million Americans.
“Insomnia can impact everyday life and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases [like heart disease and stroke] and Alzheimer’s… and exercise is nature’s sleeping pill,” Dr. Zhijun Bu, the lead author of the study and master student at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, told ABC News.
Bu and fellow researchers say that their findings back the use of exercise as a primary treatment strategy for poor sleep patterns.
Comparing the results of 22 relevant randomized clinical trials involving 1,348 participants and 13 different treatments to ease insomnia, they assessed and scored their effectiveness, including factors such as sleep quality and insomnia severity, the percentage of time asleep when in bed, the number of times people woke up after going to sleep, and the time it took to fall asleep.
The programs analyzed in the study ranged in length from a month to 26 weeks and seven were exercised-based. The exercises evaluated also included aerobic plus strength exercise, strength training alone, aerobic exercise combined with therapy, and mixed aerobic exercises.
The non-exercise-related approaches were cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep hygiene, acupuncture and massage, nothing, Ayurveda medicine, and existing treatment for the issue. The durations of those approaches ranged from six to 26 weeks.
The researchers said that cognitive behavioral therapy, which is commonly called psychotherapy, is likely to result in a large increase in total sleep time and may improve sleep efficiency and shorten the amount of time spent awake after falling asleep.
But, exercise also showed promising outcomes. Practicing yoga, for example, likely results in a large increase in total sleep time of nearly two hours, improve sleep efficiency by nearly 15 percent, reduce the amount of time spent awake after falling asleep by nearly an hour, and shorten the time it takes to fall asleep by around half an hour.
Going for a walk or jog could result in a large reduction in insomnia severity and Tai Chi may increase total sleep time by more than 50 minutes, reduce time spent awake after falling asleep by over half an hour, and shorten the time it takes to fall asleep by around 25 minutes. Tai Chi performed better on all assessed outcomes than existing treatments for up to two years.
The analysis was published recently in the online journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.
The authors said the explanation for their findings was likely tied to biology. Yoga focuses on controlled breathing and body awareness. Tai Chi also emphasizes breath control and relaxation and has been shown to decrease sympathetic nervous system activity. Walking or jogging may improve sleep by increasing energy expenditure, curbing cortisol production, boosting secretion of the sleep hormone melatonin, and enhancing the amount of deep sleep.
“Our research shows people of all ages and genders can observe the sleep benefits of exercise,” Bu said. “We hope our findings can lead to further changes within public health.”
