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
. 2025 Apr 15;16(1):3297.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-58271-x.

Dose-response relationship between evening exercise and sleep

Josh Leota  1 , David M Presby  2   3   4 , Flora Le  5 , Mark É Czeisler  6 , Luis Mascaro  5 , Emily R Capodilupo  2 , Joshua F Wiley  5 , Sean P A Drummond  5 , Shantha M W Rajaratnam  5 , Elise R Facer-Childs  7
Affiliations

Dose-response relationship between evening exercise and sleep

Josh Leota et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

Public health guidelines recommend exercise as a key lifestyle intervention for promoting and maintaining healthy sleep function and reducing disease risk. However, strenuous evening exercise may disrupt sleep due to heightened sympathetic arousal. This study examines the association between strenuous evening exercise and objective sleep, using data from 14,689 physically active individuals who wore a biometric device during a one-year study interval (4,084,354 person-nights). Here we show later exercise timing and higher exercise strain are associated with delayed sleep onset, shorter sleep duration, lower sleep quality, higher nocturnal resting heart rate, and lower nocturnal heart rate variability. Regardless of strain, exercise bouts ending ≥4 hours before sleep onset are not associated with changes in sleep. Our results suggest evening exercise-particularly involving high exercise strain-may disrupt subsequent sleep and nocturnal autonomic function. Individuals aiming to improve sleep health may benefit from concluding exercise at least 4 hours before sleep onset or electing lighter strain exercises within this window.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare the following competing interests. E.R.C. and D.M.P. are affiliated with the commercial company WHOOP, Inc. which provided support in the form of salaries but did not otherwise play a role in the study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Relative exercise timing and strain associations with sleep and nocturnal autonomic activity.
GAMMs demonstrating the relationship between exercise timing relative to habitual sleep onset and A sleep onset, B sleep duration (in hours), C sleep quality, D nocturnal RHR, and E nocturnal HRV at different levels of exercise strain. Exercise group lines (measure of centre) represent GAMM estimates. Shaded area surrounding each exercise strain group line represents 95% confidence intervals. Horizontal grey dashed line indicates the mean outcome variable on no exercise days. Vertical black dotted line indicates habitual sleep onset. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Actual exercise timing and strain associations with sleep and nocturnal autonomic activity.
GAMMs demonstrating the relationship between exercise timing relative to actual sleep onset and A sleep duration (in hours), B sleep quality, C nocturnal RHR, and D nocturnal HRV at different levels of exercise strain. Exercise group lines (measure of centre) represent GAMM estimates. Shaded area surrounding each exercise strain group line represents 95% confidence intervals. Horizontal grey dashed line indicates the mean outcome variable on no exercise days. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. CONSORT flow diagram illustrating the criteria for inclusion in the primary analysis.
Procedure stage is represented in blue. n number of participants. h hours.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Siegel, J. M. Sleep function: an evolutionary perspective. Lancet Neurol.21, 937–946 (2022). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Youngstedt, S. D., Passos, G. S. & Santana, M. G. Nighttime vigorous exercise: Is lack of sleep disruption good enough? Sleep. Med. Rev.60, 101560 (2021). - PubMed
    1. Berger, R. & Phillips, N. Comparative aspects of energy metabolism, body temperature and sleep. Acta Physiol. Scand. Suppl.574, 21–27 (1988). - PubMed
    1. Wolff, C. A. & Esser, K. A. Exercise timing and circadian rhythms. Curr. Opin. Physiol.10, 64–69 (2019). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Oda, S. & Shirakawa, K. Sleep onset is disrupted following pre-sleep exercise that causes large physiological excitement at bedtime. Eur. J. Appl Physiol.114, 1789–1799 (2014). - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources