A lot of us struggle with revenge bedtime procrastination, when we stay up late to enjoy personal time and do things we didn’t have time for during the day, even though we know it will negatively affect us the next day. But new research highlights a benefit of getting to bed earlier and it’s not just about getting more sleep.
A new study of nearly 20-thousand people finds having an earlier bedtime may help you workout more the next day.
- Researchers analyzed the sleep and exercise habits of the participants who wore biomedical devices to track their activity.
- The data gave them more than 5.9-million “person nights” to review and figure out if habitually early bedtimes correlate with other habits.
- And they found a big one - the earlier people went to bed, the more likely they were to engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity the next day.
- The earlier the better, too. Adults who were regularly in bed by 9 p.m. got around 30 more minutes of physical activity the next day than those who got to bed at 1 a.m.
- The nine-o-clockers even beat those who hit the sack at 11 p.m. regularly, getting about 15 more minutes of exercise than they did.
“Standard nine-to-five routines can clash with the natural sleep preferences of evening types, leading to social jetlag, poorer sleep quality, and increased daytime sleepiness – which can all reduce motivation and opportunity for physical activity the next day,” explains lead study author Dr. Josh Leota with Monash University in Australia. And since exercise is associated with just about every positive health outcome, heading to bed earlier may be worth it.⠀
Source: Inc