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 1. Home
 2. News
 3. Is It Better to Sleep In or Exercise When You're Tired? Here's What New
    Research Says


IS IT BETTER TO SLEEP IN OR EXERCISE WHEN YOU'RE TIRED? HERE'S WHAT NEW RESEARCH
SAYS



Find out if it's better to snooze or lace up those shoes.

Karla Walsh; Reviewed by Jessica Ball, M.S., RD
July 08, 2021
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Getting enough sleep ranks right up there with eating a balanced diet, moving
your body and not smoking as some of the most crucial pieces of the wellness
puzzle. But if we have to choose to sacrifice one of those for the other—say,
ditch an hour of sleep to sneak in a sweat sesh after that movie kept us up too
late last night—should we?





Scientists dove into this exact topic for a new study published in the June 2021
British Journal of Sports Medicine and the results are pretty eye-opening. After
crunching the numbers from more than 380,000 middle-aged men and women enrolled
in the UK Biobank research group, the study authors determined that higher
levels of physical activity might be able to counteract the negative health
impact of poor sleep.



The authors add that exercise and high-quality sleep definitely have synergistic
effects on health (translation: your best bet is to prioritize both when you
can), yet they summarize their findings in the paper: "Poor sleep was associated
with a higher risk [of] all-cause and cause-specific mortality, and these risks
were markedly exacerbated among participants with insufficient [exercise]."

a composite image of a woman sleeping in a bed and a woman getting ready to run
on a designed background

Credit: Getty Images / Shannon Fagan / Trevor Williams

Related: 9 Foods to Help You Sleep





The major finding of this research is that sleep and physical activity are
intertwined, says Jessica Ball, M.S., RD, EatingWell's assistant nutrition
digital editor.

"You need both pieces of the puzzle to feel and function at your best. If you
are super-active but don't sleep, it could be hurting your health in the long
run. Also skipping activity entirely led to worse health outcomes regardless of
sleep. It's all about finding the balance of rest and activity that works with
your life and that you can be consistent with," Ball explains.



Dating back to 2009, on average, the researchers gathered questionnaires,
interviews and physical measurements from the participants through May 2020.
They looked at their starting health condition, lifestyle habits and family
history. Then, the authors summarized activity data using metabolic equivalent
task minutes, which are related to how many calories different exercises
generally burn.

Each participant's physical activity was categorized based on the World Health
Organization (WHO) guidelines:


 * High: 1,200 or more minutes per week, or 4 hours per day
 * Medium: 600 to less than 1200 minutes per week, or 2 to 4 hours per day
 * Low: 0 to less than 600 minutes per week, or less than 2 hours per day

Note that this includes any leisure time activity—including gardening, walking,
strolling through the grocery store—not just formal "exercise," hence why the
levels seem high. Plus, walking and yoga both clock in at 3 METs, which means
they expend three times as much as sitting. A 10-minute mile, by comparison, is
10 METs. So that means five 30-minute walks plus two 30-minute runs at a
10-minute mile pace = 1,050 MET minutes; solidly in the medium category.



For sleep, they used five characteristics:

 * The tendency to be a night owl over being an early bird
 * Sleep duration
 * The presence of insomnia
 * Daytime sleepiness
 * Snoring

Sleep score categories included: healthy (4 or higher), intermediate (2 to 3),
and poor (0 to 1). (ICYMI, here are 4 ways to get a better night's sleep,
according to an expert.)

By pairing sleep scores with activity scores, the participants were tracked
until the conclusion of the study in May 2020 or until their death. Those with
lower sleep scores had a higher risk for death from any cause, from
cardiovascular disease and from stroke. The individuals with poor sleep and none
or extremely limited activity had the highest risk of death.



These are the common traits among those who tended to be both more physically
active and have a healthier sleep score:

 * Young
 * Female
 * "Normal" body weight
 * Eat more fruits and vegetables
 * Spend less of their days sitting
 * No reported mental health issues
 * Never smoked
 * Drank less alcohol

So does this mean we should sacrifice sleep to exercise? Not necessarily.

Making this a habit, "can lead to fatigue and more serious health consequences
down the road. While staying active is a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle,
try getting the extra rest and working in movement throughout your day. Adequate
sleep is crucial for exercise recovery, too, so you can't have one without the
other," Ball says.



The results of this study also show that any level of physical activity at or
above the lower threshold recommended by the WHO appeared to eliminate most of
the detrimental impacts of poor sleep and mortality.

"As with anything, choosing whether to wake up and exercise or sleep in varies
based on every individual situation—there is no right or wrong answer," Ball
adds. "That said, if you are consistently sacrificing sleep for morning
workouts, it could be worth trying to restructure your routine to workout at
another point in the day. Exercise won't be as beneficial for your body if you
have racked up a significant 'sleep debt.'"



On a day when you could use to catch up on a few more zzz's, Ball recommends
sprinkling in shorter movement breaks throughout the day, like with a walk
around the block every couple hours or 10 minutes of yoga flows in the morning
and before bed.

"Even if you're short on time, you can usually find 5 to 10 minutes here and
there to get up and move. Plus, it'll help you feel more energized throughout
the day," Ball says.

Up next: Yes, you can exercise when you have literally zero time—here's how.

 * Karla Walsh; Reviewed by Jessica Ball, M.S., RD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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