Exercise Cures Insomnia

Posted on June 9, 2008 in Latest News

The many benefits of regular exercise at any age is time and again etched out in golden letters. People who exercise more are less likely to suffer from ailments in general. This applies in the case of a good night’s sleep too. Exercise daily and you find that you sleep like a baby during the night. Recent research proves beyond doubt the benefits of physical exercise in sleep.

The Stanford University School of Medicine researchers studied the impact of physical exercise on the sleep patterns of adults aged fifty-five to seventy-five who lead a sedentary life and were troubled by insomnia. The participants were asked to exercise for twenty to thirty minutes every other day in the afternoon by walking, engaging in low-impact aerobics, and riding a stationary bicycle. The result? The time required to fall asleep was reduced by half, and sleep time increased by almost one hour.

How Exercise Induces Sleep

Exercise can lull you to sleep in two ways:

First, although exercise initially builds up the stress hormone levels in the body, they drop in a few hours not just back to their previous level but to a level surprisingly lower than was prevalent before exercising. As a result, regular exercise hours before bedtime can rapidly break the sleep-stress cycle.

Second, many people with sleeping problems find that they simply can’t clear their minds when they climb into bed ready for sleep. The stresses of the day tend to run round and round in their heads repeatedly and they simply can’t relax. Exercise gives you the opportunity to get out of the mayhem of the day pretty sooner and gives you quality time to quietly think through your problems and mostly to actually come up with a solution. Though this is not a direct result of exercise itself, it is a valuable by-product.

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