Stay active, sleep well

MUMBAI: Good old grandma's advice seems to carry with it the proverbial wisdom that it is known for. If you can't get sleep at night, she would be the first one to tell us to stay active during the day, so that you can sleep well at night.
Today's lifestyle deals a double whammy to our health, as it takes away our daily exercise as well as our sleep.Change it to set one right and the other automatically gets set right. That is what a recent study points out. Simple, right? Well, not quite, given the complicated ways of how we live and work today.
People sleep significantly better and feel more alert during the day if they get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, a new study concludes. A nationally representative sample of more than 2,600 men and women, ages 18-85, found that 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a week, which is the national guideline, provided a 65 percent improvement in sleep quality. People also said they felt less sleepy during the day, compared to those with less physical activity.
The study, out in the December 2011 issue of the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, lends more evidence to mounting research showing the importance of exercise to a number of health factors. Among adults in the civilized world, about 35 to 40 percent of the population has problems with falling asleep or with daytime sleepiness.
"We were using the physical activity guidelines set forth for cardiovascular health, but it appears that those guidelines might have a spillover effect to other areas of health," said Brad Cardinal, a professor of exercise science at Oregon State University and one of the study's authors. ""Increasingly, the scientific evidence is encouraging as regular physical activity may serve as a non-pharmaceutical alternative to improve sleep."
After controlling for age, BMI (Body Mass Index), health status, smoking status, and depression, the relative risk of often feeling overly sleepy during the day compared to never feeling overly sleepy during the day decreased by 65 percent for participants meeting physical activity guidelines.
Similar results were also found for having leg cramps while sleeping (68 percent less likely) and having difficulty concentrating when tired (45 percent decrease).
Paul Loprinzi, an assistant professor at Bellarmine University is lead author of the study, which was conducted while he was a doctoral student in Cardinal's lab at OSU. He said it is the first study to examine the relationship between accelerometer-measured physical activity and sleep while utilizing a nationally representative sample of adults of all ages.
"Our findings demonstrate a link between regular physical activity and perceptions of sleepiness during the day, which suggests that participation in physical activity on a regular basis may positively influence an individual's productivity at work, or in the case of a student, influence their ability to pay attention in class", he said.Cardinal said past studies linking physical activity and sleep used only self-reports of exercise. The danger with this is that many people tend to overestimate the amount of activity they do, he said.
He added that the take-away for consumers is to remember that exercise has a number of health benefits, and that can include helping feel alert and awake.""Physical activity may not just be good for the waistline and heart, but it also can help you sleep," Cardinal said. "There are trade-offs. It may be easier when you are tired to skip the workout and go to sleep, but it may be beneficial for your long-term health to make the hard decision and get your exercise."