[HN Gopher] Plenty of exercise can be enough to offset the negat...
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Plenty of exercise can be enough to offset the negative impacts of
poor sleep
Author : lnyan
Score : 118 points
Date : 2021-07-13 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencealert.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencealert.com)
| pwinnski wrote:
| The 30 minutes my watch insists on are having an even better
| effect than I'd realized--or rather I now understand why I've
| been feeling so much better, despite poor sleep the last week or
| so.
|
| Still trying to improve my sleep, but I've been getting to bed
| early--and then waking up early too.
| shepardrtc wrote:
| I'm currently going through pretty bad insomnia and sleeping
| medication withdrawal, so my sleep is absolute garbage (usually <
| 4 hours). However, every morning I wake up and run 20 to 30
| minutes on a treadmill, and at night I go for long walks at a
| fast pace. Just had a checkup a couple weeks ago and my vitals
| are all good. My blood work is good as well.
| raptortech wrote:
| "We found those who had both the poorest sleep quality and who
| exercised the least were most at risk of death from heart
| disease, stroke, and cancer"
|
| If we make the (strong) assumption that sleep is primarily a
| cognitive repair period, then maybe this isn't too surprising? It
| would be interesting to do the same study, but measuring
| cognitive ability instead of risk of death.
| mips_avatar wrote:
| I can take a hot bath + cold shower and feel fresh as if I slept
| 8+ hours. There's definitely something beneficial to getting your
| blood pumping.
| craftinator wrote:
| Interesting anecdote:
|
| At Marine Corps boot camp, and subsequently combat training, not
| enough sleep and plenty of exercise is the norm. I averaged
| somewhere around 5 hours a night, but never more than 7, and many
| times somewhere between 3 and 0. There wasn't a lot of pure
| exercise, but constant activity based exercise, and a lot of
| stress based exercise. I was mid 20s when I went through it, and
| had a couple of guys with me who had to get age waivers (30+). We
| all agreed it was the most alert we'd ever felt, and that when we
| slept, we slept hard and felt extremely well rested, even when
| sleeping on hard ground.
|
| Since exiting I spent many years feeling lethargic and burnt out
| from work, until I started training for a marathon. Now I have
| that same feeling, that it doesn't matter how much I sleep, and
| my body just feels more alive. Exercise, especially aerobic and
| cardio vascular, does wonders for your health, if you have time
| to do it right.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| Could all this be attributed to heightened cortisol levels
| throughout training which are supposedly toxic?
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Interesting, I've always wondering how military personal
| managed to sleep so little and work so hard (physically)
| bamboozled wrote:
| I've had onset insomnia my whole life, I also workout a bunch.
| It's just a habit now.
|
| I feel the exact same way, I've actually had nights where I've
| only caught 4 hours sleep, woke up and ran 5kms, hiked
| mountains, lifted weights, rode bikes and felt as good as new.
| I only feel good if I workout.
|
| I've also had days where I've had 8 hours sleep, then sat
| around the house and I feel absolutely horrendous, usually, I
| end up going and doing some physical activity to feel better.
|
| I've always wondered if we're going to one day find out that
| the 8 hours sleep thing was wrong and that it's physical
| exercise we truly need.
| Pyramus wrote:
| > I've always wondered if we're going to one day find out
| that the 8 hours sleep thing was wrong and that it's physical
| exercise we truly need.
|
| Two comments on that: The 8 hours sleep is a population
| average. It is very unlikely that you will need 8 hours of
| sleep, very likely your body will need more or less, and this
| will change as you age. You might very well be a 6 hours
| type. That would basically invalidate what we know from
| animals - they are most vulnerable when they sleep, so it's
| unlikely evolution mad a mistake given all animals sleep,
| even the ones that don't have brains.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The thing is though, I do feel like shit when I wake up
| after only 6 hours sleep :)
|
| It's jut exercise saves me. At least it feels like it does.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Some interesting quotes:
|
| "Those with the highest risk of dying from cancer or heart
| disease during the study period were those with the worst quality
| sleep and who didn't meet the WHO recommended guidelines for
| exercise. That risk went down for people with poor quality sleep
| but who did meet the exercise guidelines."
|
| "The study isn't enough to prove causation - that more activity
| causes the reduction in harms from poor sleep - and it's based on
| self-reporting rather than independent observations. That said,
| there's enough of a correlation here to interest scientists."
|
| "For now it's not clear why more exercise might make up for poor
| sleep, as far as our health goes. It could be that the increased
| activity is counteracting inflammation, or reducing
| irregularities in glucose metabolism, suggest the researchers."
| reedjosh wrote:
| While I do think those are the key quotes of the article, I'm
| not sure I'd call those interesting.
|
| Those quotes belie the truth--the article and any inferred
| conclusions therefrom are meaningless.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| When the conclusion is, literally, that there is
| _correlation_ between these two variables over which people
| have control, how can you say it 's "meaningless"? It's some
| evidence of what seems like an obvious hypothesis: sleep is
| healthy and exercise is healthy; if you do more of one and
| less of the other it should even out in some manner. They
| looked at the data and saw that this appears to be the case.
|
| The "correlation is not causation" crowd who show up in every
| scientific article being discussed is the worst kind of
| pseudo-intellectualism. The authors of the paper went out of
| their way to say it.
| reedjosh wrote:
| > The authors of the paper went out of their way to say it.
|
| 2/3rds of the way through.
|
| I'm glad myself and others point this out. I personally
| read the whole article.
|
| That's time I can't get back. In the interest of keeping HN
| content worthwhile, people can and should point this sort
| of thing out.
|
| Plus, the title isn't exercise and sleep correlate with
| health. The title implies causation.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Not completely meaningless, in that it might point to a
| direction for further research. There is certainly nothing
| actionable here though.
| sadness3 wrote:
| Further research is actionable. This is useful
| encouragement, because absence of correlation implies
| absence of causation, so this is an efficient way of
| eliminating one disproof early.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Sleep involves large-scale slow rhythmic synchrony of the brain
| -- a kind of low information entropy state because of the high
| degree of coherence. Despite the heat, running also involves a
| large-scale slow rhythmic synchrony of the body and brain.
| Hypothetically, high-coherence exercise might have similar
| cognitive effects as sleep.
|
| This is a testable hypothesis. Simply compare low-coherence
| exercise (say, moving boxes or frenetic dance) with high-
| coherence exercise (running or rowing).
| TrevorJ wrote:
| is 'coherence' a scientific term as it's used here? I would
| love to learn more about this.
| caleb-allen wrote:
| Subjectively, I appreciate my running routine because it's so
| meditative. I obviously can't say what the brain waves might
| look like, but there are so many physical cadences that create
| a nice synchrony: heart beats, steps, breaths.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I've averaged about 12-25km per week for the past 3 years, and
| have been doing about 34km in the past month.
|
| My sleep is not "better" just cause I exercise. I sleep like
| normal. I go in spurts of 6 hours of sleep when I'm under stress
| from like work or life and I never feel rested. I often have 30
| minute uncontroable powernaps that I have to entertain once or
| twice a day. If not I do that head bobbing thing.
|
| When I get at least 7:30-8 hours of sleep I don't have that
| issue. I can function on 6 but I don't feel better at 6. So take
| this study with a grain of salt. Your probably alert because you
| have other issues your brain is concerned about as opposed to
| actually being relaxed. I can function on 4 hours of sleep too.
| Running a 10k though isn't going to make the day any easier and
| offset be having another 4 hours of sleep for the day.
|
| Exercise isn't some sort of panacea for poor sleep. It's much
| more likely tied to the fact that people who exercise live
| regimented lifestyles so their circadian rhythm is more in tune
| with the time of day than the amount of sleep.
|
| Edit: k to km/week
| littleweep wrote:
| 12-25k or 34k what? Are those steps?
| sdwr wrote:
| Is that km/week?
| boring_twenties wrote:
| This would certainly explain why I feel great during the winter
| (aka ski season) and like absolute shit during the summer (when I
| spend 99% of my waking hours in a chair or on the couch), despite
| equally terrible sleep habits year-round.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Roller blades!
|
| The snow here in Northern Tasmania wasn't real good so I only
| went up the hill once.
|
| But we bought roller blades in the warmer months, and I go for
| a run in the morning before work.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Unfortunately skiing has spoiled me in that if I fall, I like
| having a decent chance of falling into something soft.
|
| Additionally, skiing is much more fun than rollerblading, to
| the point that if I had to miss an entire ski season due to
| some silly rollerblading (or mountain biking, which is what
| most everyone else around here does, or whatever) injury, I'd
| never forgive myself.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| Feeling like crap for half the year seems like a much worse
| outcome, no?
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Worse than missing one or more ski seasons? I actually
| don't think so, although I will allow the possibility
| that I'm actually insane.
|
| What I probably need is some sort of in-home exercise
| machine, or maybe just going to the local gym. Last year
| both of those things were a bit hard to come by, I don't
| know why I'm still sleeping on it this year though. In
| fact I'm going to go look into this right now lol
| TrevorJ wrote:
| I actually got in pretty good shape playing beat saber
| last year, as silly as that sounds.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| As my sibling comment here suggests, life is about trade-
| offs.
|
| You don't necessarily have to be inactive, that's your
| choice ;)
| boring_twenties wrote:
| You are both right, of course. I just haven't learned how
| to force myself to be active during the summer, because
| the other half of the year, I don't have to do anything
| of the sort.
| rajin444 wrote:
| If you're going to die soon (from the listed conditions),
| wouldn't you be less likely to workout (especially with poor
| sleep)? I read the article and didn't see this addressed, but
| maybe the study did...
| handrous wrote:
| You do have to watch out for that. IIRC that effect was behind
| the widely-reported "one drink a day is measurably better for
| you than never drinking!" thing, which turned out to be wrong--
| chronically ill people are more likely to teetotal, for obvious
| reasons, and also _way_ more likely to die young than a
| healthy, drinks-sometimes peer--the causality was backwards,
| healthy people are more likely to drink. If anything, the
| actual results emphasize just how _extremely_ bad drinking more
| than very occasionally is for your health, given at what low
| levels it overwhelms that large selection bias.
|
| [EDIT] IIRC it's also the mechanism behind the "people who walk
| slower have higher mortality rates" thing. It's because people
| who are already sick or feel bad walk slower, and people who
| are sick or feel bad are more likely to die, and that wasn't
| well-controlled-for, not because being a slower walker _per se_
| makes you more likely to die, at least not to such a high
| degree as was reported.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I hate to be a party pooper (actually, I don't), but if your
| sleep is poor, you need to look inside yourself and calm your
| mind down. In the long run, exercising a lot won't compensate.
| You want to enter another world, not keep processing the daytime
| world.
|
| Turn your phone off, do only non-stressful things and don't eat
| before bed, cover up all clocks in your bedroom, and yes,
| meditate. That's how you sleep better.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I've found the opposite effect: on the days when I've exercised
| minimally, I tend to sleep poorer, not to mention feeling more
| stress when awake. On the days that I do exercise, my sleep is
| much better: falling asleep faster, not as easily awaken, etc.
| garyrob wrote:
| I meditate regularly, and when I can't sleep, I meditate in bed
| until I do. It can take an hour, but almost always works;
| otherwise I can be up for much longer.
| naasking wrote:
| Exercise has a big impact on restlessness and improves
| relaxation, so it really improves sleep quality and duration.
| Zevis wrote:
| Looking inside of myself just makes me more restless. It's
| about the worst thing I can do if I actually want to sleep.
| Exercise has been a great help in shutting off my mind at
| night.
| Arubis wrote:
| To the degree that folks have agency over their sleep schedule,
| yes, improving sleep is the best path to improving sleep.
|
| For those of us that have less control over that situation (I'm
| a parent of young children; others may struggle with chronic
| illness or other interferences), more tools in the toolset are
| welcome.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Absolutely, having kids is sacrificing your body to the
| survival of the species. Thanks for that! That's what
| evolution would tell us to do.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I need a tv, or radio on.
|
| My thoughts never stop.
| samatman wrote:
| Chronic insomnia is an actual medical condition, just like
| feeling low is distinct from depression.
|
| Just like basically anyone with depression has tried most-to-
| all of the "if you're feeling down try this!" advice, those of
| us afflicted with insomnia have tried any "winding down" method
| you might casually inflict as low effort drive-by advice on the
| internet.
|
| Yeah it works sometimes. Then some other times I _just don 't
| fall asleep_ that night and it messes up my whole week. So it
| goes.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Yeah, I know, but believe me, it's not drive-by advice just
| because you hear it all the time. Things can be true without
| being easy (or even possible for everyone).
|
| Insomnia might be a medical condition, but that doesn't mean
| your doctor has a prescription for it. If they do, it
| probably comes with a bunch of advice similar to the
| conventional stuff you're tired of hearing.
| syops wrote:
| It's great that you've found things that work for you but you
| should avoid believing that these are universal truths. Our
| minds are complicated and varied and it seems implausible to
| think that there are solutions that fit everyone.
| bordercases wrote:
| On the other hand all of what that commenter recommended has
| a tonne of evidence behind it, some of which was merely taken
| for granted as true at a time when our lifestyles weren't as
| buzzed-out or sedentary than they are now.
| [deleted]
| drclau wrote:
| Side comment, on the subject of sleep, exercise and plenty more,
| I strongly recommend checking Huberman Lab podcast [0]. Also, I
| have no connection to him, other than being a listener who found
| the information useful.
|
| Links:
|
| [0]: https://hubermanlab.com
| dannyr wrote:
| Indeed. He's got a series on brain and sleep and I'm learning a
| lot especially that I'm having a lot of sleeping issues.
| trey-jones wrote:
| My experience is that plenty of exercise results in an
| improvement to quality of sleep, most of the time.
| amelius wrote:
| My experience is that weight-lifting increases my sleep
| requirements (and also improves quality of sleep).
| varispeed wrote:
| Some people do weigh-lifting before sleep as it gets them
| tired to drift into a bliss easily, but others say if they do
| the exercise they cannot sleep at all and they actually
| prefer to do it after sleep. I wonder why such a drastic
| difference of experience between people?
| vidarh wrote:
| How you do your lifting can have drastic effects on how
| pumped up or relaxed you are afterwards. Lifting can be
| meditative and slow and systematic and leave you tired
| without being agitated, or you can do the full "Rocky"
| thing and get all pumped up and adrenaline flowing and
| grunting like the Hulk, and come out of it not just unable
| to sleep but unable to sit still.
|
| Could be other things as well, of course, but that strikes
| me as one factor that might well produce those different
| effects.
| sdwr wrote:
| Yeah, exercise tires me out regardless, that's the core.
| The difference is whether I get amped up at the same
| time.
|
| Ive found the biggest difference is how much I've used my
| body in the past few days - working out for the first
| time in a while leaves me energized no matter what time
| it is.
| samatman wrote:
| Your mileage may vary.
|
| Personally, the ideal time for me to lift is my serum
| caffeine peak, and when I'm done, it takes a half hour to
| 45 minutes for my heart rate to return to baseline. I'll
| sweat another 500ml or so during the refractory period, and
| have no appetite to speak of. I can't even imagine sleeping
| during this time.
|
| After which my appetite returns with a vengeance, and I'm
| up for a big meal and a long nap if I can swing it. I sleep
| very well on lifting nights, which is a blessing because my
| sleep quality is unfortunately poor in general these days
| (you can skip the advice, I don't need or want it, thanks).
|
| Lifting weights starting about three hours before bedtime
| might work, actually, but hasn't really been compatible
| with gym scheduling for me. I'm about to join one with
| later hours and might try it, although rallying after
| supper strikes me as unlikely given my usual energy levels.
| Worth a shot though!
| trey-jones wrote:
| People are different, period
| Floegipoky wrote:
| There may be a small number of people for whom strenuous
| exercise right before sleep doesn't interfere, but a more
| likely explanation in my mind is broscience. The
| weightlifting community is especially susceptible to
| training methodologies which are suboptimal but fit the
| identity they're performing. Are these people really
| scientifically evaluating the affect of intense exercise
| close to bedtime, or are they working backwards from what
| _feels_ the most "manly"?
| deregulateMed wrote:
| I have a weird ancedote. I used to experience the same
| effect, but now that I've gotten to dangerously heavy weights
| (385 squats, 435 deadlift, etc...), I have stopped being able
| to go up in weight and sleep benefits have gone away.
|
| I do various routines to push that number higher, but it's
| slow and most of the cycle I'm not at my heaviest weights.
|
| Anyway, now I run and I get those benefits again.
|
| Just weird how the benefits of weight lifting have slowed
| down with a half decade of experience..
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| What's the motivation to lift _dangerously heavy_ weights?
|
| Is there some trade-off to be gained vs. the long term risk
| or injury?
| deregulateMed wrote:
| I'm with you. I don't really push myself as a result. If
| I can do them safely I'm happy.
|
| But as soon as stuff moves that isn't supposed to, I
| deload. I'm still able to knock out 315lb squats easy.
|
| My original goal was to make thick bones and get muscle
| while I'm still young. If I can carry lifting into old
| age, I'm hoping to stay good sized and move around.
|
| Plus all the health benefits until then.
| austincheney wrote:
| > For now it's not clear why more exercise might make up for poor
| sleep
|
| One potential reason is dramatically lower cardio stress. I run
| about 3-4 miles 4-5 times a week through asthma. I can run
| through the asthma for a bit but it raises my pulse rate during
| exercise. Even better than running is long distance speed walking
| which burns calories just the same but keeps your pulse in your
| exercise target heart rate. The result is a resting heart rate of
| about 53 bpm for most of the rest of the day with excellent blood
| pressure. A couple years ago when I was fast (and far away from
| my asthma triggers) my resting heart rate was around 44bpm. Not
| bad for somebody in their 40s.
|
| Out of shape my resting heart rate is closer to low or mid 70s
| and my blood pressure is about 40 points higher. I also seem to
| achieve 20 pounds overweight. My heart has to work much harder
| during the day and I need better sleep to make up the difference.
|
| As a side note I have discovered the muscles that induce
| asthmatic symptoms fall off after about 45 minutes of continuous
| intense cardio. I suspect that's how long it takes for those
| muscles to reach muscle failure and relax.
| boringg wrote:
| Personal anecdote: Plenty of exercise improves the quality of my
| sleep, therefore requiring not as much sleep.
| pwthornton wrote:
| I do find it does improve the quality of sleep, but I also find
| that I sleep more if I exercise. When I am exercising
| vigourusly six days a week, I am passing out at like 9 pm. I
| recently had some small surgery and couldn't exercise for a few
| weeks, and I found myself staying up super later and having
| trouble going to sleep. I just wasn't that tired.
|
| I do a lot of weight lifting and indoor cycling, and they have
| helped me get high-quality sleep and have much more consistent
| days.
|
| I think it would be hard to get both get a lot of exercise and
| not sleep much. Exercise improves sleep, and when you are sleep
| deprived, it is hard to get energy to exercise.
| tootie wrote:
| Personal anecdote: I have trouble getting enough exercise
| because of fatigue. And it doesn't do much for helping me
| sleep.
| Zevis wrote:
| Might just be you're doing too much exercise. If I over-reach
| too far, I end up not being able to sleep all night.
| thatcat wrote:
| Personal anecdote: It seems that some people produce
| metabolites that disrupt their sleep when they exercise,
| even at low levels of exercise.
| version_five wrote:
| There is the concept of "hypermetabolic" where it is hard
| to sleep after sustained exercise essentially because
| your body is so fired up. I have experienced this, but it
| really has to be an unusually long run, at least 30km
| usually more. It would not surprise me that you're
| correct, and the threshold for this state varies by
| person (and almost certainly fitness level) so for some
| it could occur at low levels like you say.
| xeromal wrote:
| Another anecdote, I definitely notice a lack of sleep on my
| rest days. It's annoying.
| newsclues wrote:
| I view exercise, sleep and quality fuel (healthy food) are all
| part of a cycle for health and performance optimization.
|
| Military, school, work, life in general. Keep those three
| going, and you are operating at peak performance.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Came here to say this.
|
| PE recalibrate a lot of things in me, I sleep earlier, fall
| asleep faster, goes deeper.
| newera2017 wrote:
| The 'Plenty' is very key here. I have friends who excercise a
| lot and are able to get by with less sleep but if you stop
| working out the need for sleep comes back real fast.
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