Does evening sports training have a negative effect?

Nocturnal sports influence our sleep?

Certainly, most people will do their sports activities throughout the day. However, there are also exceptions, some people do sports in the evening or even late at night. Researchers are now studying how a late workout will affect our sleep.

The scientists from the ETH Zurich found in their current study that sports in the late evening under certain circumstances may have negative effects on sleep. The physicians published the results of their study in the English-language journal "Sports Medicine".

Why do people only do sports late at night??

Doing sports exercises in the evening or even late at night could endanger your sleep. For some reasons, such as lack of time during the day or shift work, some people can not exercise during the day. For such people, nocturnal workouts are often the only way to get some exercise at all. However, sports at such a late hour could potentially cause problems and have a negative impact on sleep.

The data of 275 subjects were analyzed

The researchers analyzed the results of 23 previous studies that examined the effects of a single evening exercise on sleep. 275 subjects participated in these studies. In all but one of the examinations, the subjects were healthy athletes with normal healthy sleep patterns. Running and cycling were among the most popular forms of exercise for these participants, with an average running time of 87 minutes.

What results did the researchers discover??

Subjects completed an average of 1.8 hours of physical activity before going to bed. Some participants managed to fall asleep twelve minutes after their training. The results of the investigation indicated that late evening training does not cause sleep problems. So if you do your physical activity in the gym at night, it will not automatically disturb your sleep. However, there is also some evidence that a hard workout can extend the time you need to fall asleep.

In general, evening sport does not have a negative impact on sleep

Overall, the studies evaluated do not support the hypothesis that evening exercise adversely affects sleep. Rather, according to the researchers, the opposite was the case (though the effects were minor), with one possible exception: intensive physical activity just before going to sleep may affect sleep disturbances, sleep efficiency and overall sleep time, say the researchers.

Further research is needed

Despite the findings, scientists now need to conduct further research to determine the ideal time between training and going to bed. Otherwise intensive physical activity could otherwise lead to people needing a longer time to fall asleep. (As)