7 ms·
'There is “absolutely no scientific evidence” that working out in the late evening keeps you from sleeping, Mr. Youngstedt says.' That isn't what people say ha
by pwhelan 16y ago
'There is “absolutely no scientific evidence” that working out in the late evening keeps you from sleeping, Mr. Youngstedt says.'
That isn't what people say happens -- indeed I thought everyone knew that working out late kept you up because workouts wake you up.
And that some people who exercise the most think they don't do enough should show that self-ratings are questionable at best and not a basis for "scientific evidence" in this case. Especially since "[w]orrying, as the Swiss study showed, is what will keep you awake long into the night" can easily interfere I would think that without taking general stress levels into account that the study isn't particularly meaningful.
- tensor 16y agoIt's vastly more meaningful than peoples anecdotal evidence.
- pwhelan 16y agoYou mean the anecdotal accounts of sleep and admittedly poor perceptions of exercise the participants in the study had? It seems what they should be claiming is that your mental state matters more than your physical state for sleep. Changing your mental state clearly has an impact but it doesn't make sense to say changing your physical state wouldn't impact sleep as well, even if to a lesser degree.
- tensor 16y agoFrom the abstract: "Conclusions: For early adulthood, findings did not support commonplace or expert opinion that exercise behavior has a favorable influence on sleep. Rather, the findings lend support to the importance of cognitive processes in the onset and maintenance of sleep complaints." They are claiming precisely what you suggest they should. Saying that the evidence does not support physical exercise having an impact on sleep is not the same thing as claiming to have evidence that exercise does not impact sleep. They simply mean that the data they collected does now show any such link. In this case, it is clearly because the cognitive processes appeared to dominate the results. To test the former directly, I suppose one would need some physical measure of good sleep. Perhaps by monitoring brain activity and restlessness.
- pwhelan 16y agoI see. I did not search for the actual study -- only that the researcher interviewed said that exercising aiding sleep is a myth in the article. Silly me, I forgot to remember media often distorts science If that is indeed what they are claiming in their work, then that makes sense and Gretchen Reynolds (nytimes author) should have been clearer.
- timcederman 16y agoDuring my PhD program I regularly would go running around 10-11pm at night, come home, shower and go straight to bed. I guess I just didn't know I wasn't supposed to feel sleepy after exercise.
- asdflkj 16y agoThat's not unusual. Running is very different from lifting weights or similar. This discussion is worthless until "exercise" is more precisely specified.
- pwhelan 16y agoNot only that, it says nothing about stress levels (running is a great way to relax). How hard were you working out -- low hr runs, sprint intervals, tempo runs? Were you already a bit sleepy? Did you have established circadian rhythms? “There’s no room for exercise to improve sleep, if people are sleeping fine. [Mr. Youngstedt] said." I am skeptical of the results when the researchers say that they cannot count on the volunteers to accurately gauge their exertion levels but they can accurately gauge the quality of their sleep (remembering of course that 6hrs good sleep feels more restful than 8 on a plane). Also, gauging over-training is a pretty difficult exercise (pardon the pun) which definitely messes with a person.