Why Your Workouts Before Bedtime Need to Stop

When work runs long, the commute home is slow, and cooking dinner takes forever (you promised yourself you’d stop ordering takeout), it’s normal to try to squeeze in a quick workout before crashing. Better than not exercising at all, right? Unfortunately, a recent study has bad news for you: Intense workouts shortly before bedtime may negatively impact your sleep. After monitoring the exercise, sleep, and heart activity of 14,689 people for a year, an international team of researchers revealed that exercising within four hours of going to sleep is associated with taking longer to fall asleep, sleeping less, poorer sleep quality, along with higher nocturnal resting heart rate and lower nocturnal heart rate variability—both of which are typically linked to health risks. “Intense exercise in the evening can keep the body in a heightened state of alertness, which is why public health guidelines have previously advised against working out too close to bedtime,” Josh Leota from Monash Univ ... Read full article.