Can Strength Training Improve Your Sleep?
It’s all too easy easy to get stuck in a cycle of not being able to fall asleep at night—or struggling to stay asleep—and then feeling groggy the next morning. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans experience insomnia each year and 70 million Americans suffer from some sort of sleep disorder. So, if you’re struggling with sleep issues, you’re definitely not alone.
However, the takeaway from a new study in Preventive Medicine Reports says that adding some strength training into your routine during the day can actually help improve your quality of sleep.
Researchers looked at over 23,000 adults in Germany, collecting data on their weekly frequency of resistance exercise and sleep quality. They found that any muscle-strengthening done during a typical week was associated with a reduced prevalence of sleep rated as “poor” or “very poor.” These associations remained after adjusting for other factors like high body mass index, chronic disease, age, and smoking.
Excerpted from Runner’s World
