Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2019 Oct;5(5):487-494.
doi: 10.1016/j.sleh.2019.06.003. Epub 2019 Jul 26.

Walk to a better night of sleep: testing the relationship between physical activity and sleep

Alycia N Sullivan Bisson  1 , Stephanie A Robinson  2 , Margie E Lachman  3
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Walk to a better night of sleep: testing the relationship between physical activity and sleep

Alycia N Sullivan Bisson et al. Sleep Health. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Objectives: Many do not sleep well, particularly middle-aged and older adults. Physical activity (PA) shows promise for improving sleep; however, populations with clinical sleep disturbances have been a research focus. It remains unclear whether low-impact daily PA, like walking, can affect sleep in healthy adults.

Design: The current study was embedded within a 4-week randomized controlled trial to increase PA.

Setting: Participants from the greater Boston area were recruited to participate in a 4-week walking intervention on a rolling basis between October 2015 and August 2016.

Participants: Fifty-nine participants (72% female) were enrolled in the study, with an average age of 49.43 (±8.40) years.

Intervention: The 4-week intervention was aimed at increasing participants' daily steps as the primary outcome. The current, supplementary study examined relationships between monthly and daily PA and sleep.

Measurements: Steps and active minutes were measured daily using a Fitbit Zip. Self-reports of sleep quality and duration were assessed daily, along with before and after the intervention.

Results and conclusions: Averaged across the month, daily active minutes were positively related to sleep quality but not duration. Sex moderated this relationship; women who took more steps and were more active reported sleeping better than those less active. Within persons, on days that participants were more active than average, they reported better sleep quality and duration in both sexes. Results suggest that low-impact PA is positively related to sleep, more so in women than men. Findings also showed that PA plays a greater role in predicting sleep quality than duration.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflict of interest and no financial interest or benefit associated with this work.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Relationship of mean daily steps and sleep quality across the month by gender
Between-person relationship between mean daily steps (low = − 1 SD, mean, high = +1SD) and mean sleep quality across the month by gender, controlling for age and condition.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Relationship of mean daily active minutes and sleep quality across the month by gender
Between-person relationship between mean daily active minutes (low = − 1 SD, mean, high = +1SD) and mean sleep quality across the month by gender, controlling for age and condition.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Spencer RMC. Neurophysiological basis of sleep’s function on memory and cognition. ISRN Physiol. 2013;2013:619319. doi:10.1155/2013/619319. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hoevenaar-Blom MP, Spijkerman AMW, Kromhout D, Verschuren WMM. Sufficient sleep duration contributes to lower cardiovascular disease risk in addition to four traditional lifestyle factors: The MORGEN study. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2014;21(11): 1367–1375. doi:10.1177/2047487313493057. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Czeisler CA. Duration, timing and quality of sleep are each vital for health, performance and safety. Sleep Heal. 2015; 1 (1):5–8. doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.008. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Institute of Medicine. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation. Vol (Colten HR, Altevogt BM, eds.). Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2006. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19960/. Accessed December 7, 2015. - PubMed
    1. Liu Y, Wheaton AG, Chapman DP, Cunningham TJ, Lu H, Croft JB. Prevalence of healthy sleep duration among adults — United States, 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2016;65(6): 137–141. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6506al. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources