When looking for the best exercise for sleep, it helps to go to the top. Talk to any elite athlete, and above all the fancy-sounding physio treatments, massage guns and nutritional powders, sleep reigns supreme as one of the most important aspects of good health. From NFL stars, to motorsport mavericks, to the inimitable Joe Wicks, sleep is king. England and Saracens star Maro Itoje told GQ that “Sleep is the number one recovery method. The benefits of a good sleep trounce all other forms of recovery… it gives you that mental recovery, it gives your body time for muscle repair, and your body is in a deep state of relaxation.” Who are we to argue with a three-time Six Nations champion?
Sleep is a physical and mental superpower, and this is no different when it comes to fitness. This works both ways, however: good exercise can help you catch more quality snooze time. Unfortunately for people like me, who spend too long staring at a screen and too little time either on a treadmill or mattress, the science behind exercising for a good night's sleep isn't as simple as ‘running makes you tired’, with every person unique in their sleep biology and exercise regimes sometimes veering into unhelpful territory.
When it comes to sleep, not all exercise is equal. We tasked an array of fitness and sleep experts with explaining why this is – and putting together the bedtime workout of our dreams.
The relationship between exercise and sleep
NFL trailblazer Efe Obada put it neatly when GQ asked him about the benefits of sleep. “Sleep is probably one of the biggest things. It is everything,” said Obada. “You can work out until your body's mashed up and you think you need a whole year of rest – you have one good sleep, I'm telling you, it makes a huge difference.”
If the word of an elite sportsman isn't enough, athletic anecdote is backed up by the experts. “Exercise is amazing for sleep – at the right time,” says James Wilson, sleep expert for West Ham and founder of Kip Mate, “which is not too close to bedtime and in line with your body's natural rhythm.”
The benefits of exercise on sleep are manifold. “Exercise gives you better quality deep and REM sleep,” says Wilson. “When people ask how they can get more deep or REM sleep, you can't really control sleep in that way – but exercise really does help. You need more deep sleep when you exercise for physical recovery, and you need more REM sleep because there's an emotional recovery around exercise.
“The relationship is two-way. Get that balance between the importance of exercise and the importance of sleep. My message to people is ‘learn you’.”
Martin Sharp, fitness coach and award-winning personal trainer, agrees. “Sleep plays a pivotal role in so many functions, allowing your brain to be able to learn, store, sort, forget and consolidate information,” says Sharp. “From a fitness perspective, sleep also allows the body the opportunity to recover and prepare for the following day.”
Missing out on sleep could have consequences for your painstakingly-curated fitness routine. “Without the time for good quality sleep, your body doesn’t have the necessary time to make its repairs, including adaptations such as building muscle, and the lack of sleep can be a catabolic stressor, breaking down many of the hard-earned gains that you have created,” says Sharp. “These effects also carry forward into the following day with elevated amounts of catabolic hormones present, further impacting anabolic functions. This can also compound over time and in some cases may lead to metabolic dysfunction. So sleep well – ensuring you are getting enough quality, undisturbed sleep in near darkness.”
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Is it a good idea to exercise before bed?
Only in the right, low-intensity way. High-impact exercise might help you get your pump on, but do it a few hours before bed and you'll still be in beast mode as you try to settle down for the night. In fact, one of the biggest risks is the temptation to overdo your day's exercise.
“Exercise and sleep share a common enemy: cortisol,” says Alex Legezynski, founder of West London Personal Training. “It’s a stress hormone that causes muscle degradation and negatively impacts sleep quality. Overtraining is the easiest way to increase cortisol levels, which has a knock-on effect on your recovery. This feeds back into a vicious cycle of over-exertion and poor-quality recovery.”
This isn't to say that all activity before bed is bad: practices like yoga (such as yoga nidra), meditation and breathing exercises can actually be of benefit. “Although yoga nidra (and similar forms of traditional ‘deep meditation’ practice) were not traditionally used for improving quality sleep (rather, they were used primarily as a tool within a larger practice of spiritual development), there are certainly some physical benefits,” says yoga instructor and psychotherapist Eloise Skinner. “Research indicates practices like mindfulness meditation can reduce insomnia, fatigue and even the experience of depression.
“Techniques from meditation and mindfulness – such as focusing deeply on the breath, scanning the body for sensations, or even just intentionally relaxing muscle groups – can help to trigger a relaxation response, allowing both body and mind to sink into sleep or deep rest.”
Is exercising in the morning good for you?
This really depends on the individual. Someone for whom early rising is a doddle could see big benefits to jumping on the treadmill or weights before work. “Being aware of our exercise can help our sleep,” says Anna Campkin, qualified life coach and NLP practitioner at Goldster. “Have high energy, vigorous exercise in the morning to get you going, wake yourself up and kick start your metabolism and then calmer movement in the afternoon.”
However, the ‘rise and grind’ trend regularly seen on media platforms and various aspirational podcasts isn't, as some would have you believe, the only way to get ahead – and could be doing more harm than good. “One of the problems I have in the organisations I work with is the 5 am Club and the myth that waking up early makes you successful,” says Wilson. “Ultimately you should sleep with your body's natural rhythm. If you can wake up at 5 in the morning to exercise naturally, I don't have a problem with that, but if you're setting your alarm after ten days of doing it, then it's not your body's natural rhythm. Bear in mind that only about ten per cent of us are more natural larks [early risers]. Mark Wahlberg hasn't helped!
“The sleep you steal by waking up at five in the morning is REM sleep – the sleep that gives you emotional resilience, amongst many other things. What you're stealing is the sleep that helps you build a healthy mental capacity.”
Sharp agrees: “Society, in recent times, has a strange way of rewarding lack of sleep. Long working hours somehow correspond to hard work, productivity and success, though this makes little sense – spending hours on something that could take less is far from efficient.”
If exercising before work is the only option you have, then at least try to maintain a routine your body can rely on. “This isn’t 8 hours mandated, it is the amount your body needs,” says Sharp. “For some, it can be as low as 6 hours and others may be as high as 9. Try to keep to regular sleeping hours going to bed and waking up at the same time each day. And yes, that does mean weekends.”
Mental benefits of exercise on sleep
“We know that sleep quality is closely related to mood and mental health,” says Skinner. “The impact of exercise on mental health and mood improvement is significant: we know that exercise releases endorphins, and that even a small amount of daily exercise can deliver mental benefits.
“The mind and body are deeply interconnected, so both physical and mental impacts will likely have an impact on sleep.”
Jarrod Nobbe, Head Weightlifting Coach and Performance Coach for Athletic Lab, agrees that exercise has a significant effect on the restful nature of our sleep. “Physical activity helps combat the feelings and hormones related to stress and anxiety,” says Nobbe. “When we perform physical tasks, we often get an excellent release of the feel-good hormones dopamine and serotonin, which help relax and ease the body from stress and anxiety.”
When and how to exercise for a good night's sleep
As mentioned, there's no exact science to using exercise for better sleep: anyone claiming to have the definitive answer to this should be avoided. What you can do, however, is train using the rule of thumb that the more intense the exercise, the earlier in the day it should be.
“The timing of your workout can affect sleep quality,” says Legezynski. “Exercise releases adrenaline whilst increasing both your heart rate and body temperature. Aim to complete your workout at least 2-3 hours before you want to sleep.
“You might want to ditch your ‘pre-workout’ caffeine supplements if you’re training after work. They’re often very strong, and the energy boost survives the workout and impacts sleep. You should try using a sugary snack, instead – any kind of fruit is a great place to start.”
Wilson sees breathing exercises as one of the greatest tools for sleeping well. “To fall asleep, you need to have the right physical conditions, which are a drop in heart rate and drop in core temperature,” says Wilson. “Breathing exercises, yoga, pilates, meditation and prayer all help – they slow your heart rate down. It's the greatest tool you have.
“Four minutes of holding for four, breathing out for four and resting for four works really well.”
Workout for good sleep
Eloise Skinner, yoga instructor and psychotherapist
A slow, gentle stretch practice is good immediately before bed, coupled with a meditation or breathing exercise. This could, of course, be in addition to any other exercise or fitness done during the day.
- Before bed, try taking a few slow stretches – maybe a gentle forward fold or hamstring stretch, or a full-body twist (lying comfortably on your back, gently dropping the knees over to one side while keeping the upper body relatively grounded).
- Neck and shoulder stretches can be good before bed too – try gentle neck rolls (lowering chin to chest, taking the chin in a semi-circle motion between shoulders and stretching each side of the neck).
- Once you've had a few moments stretching, try bringing the attention and focus solely to the breath: focus on breathing up and down the full length of the spine, paying attention to the sensations in the body.
This kind of simple meditation/breathwork practice can be great for preparing the body and mind for sleep – and can also be done for those who wake up during the night and struggle to get back to sleep.
