Should You Work Out Before Bed?
Is working out before bed bad for your nighttime rest? Can evening exercise lead to insomnia? Is there an optimal time of day to work out? Get-Fit Guy answers your questions.
Ben Greenfield
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Should You Work Out Before Bed?
(correction_with_script)
In a previous Get-Fit Guy article, What’s the Best Time of Day to Work Out?”, I answered a listener question about whether working out earlier in the day would somehow boost your metabolism or be better for fat loss as compared to exercising later in the day.
In my response, I explained that while it certainly is true that morning exercise can jumpstart your metabolism and calorie-burning (especially compared to sitting at the breakfast table for an extra 30 minutes), it may not be the best time to do high intensity intervals or weight training, for two reasons:
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Your body temperature peaks in the afternoon, usually between 2pm and 6pm, which means that you’re going to be able to do hard workouts even harder around this time. This could result in a bigger fitness boost, which is a bonus if your goal is getting significantly fitter, bigger, faster, stronger, or more powerful.
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Your protein synthesis, or ability to use dietary amino acids for muscle repair, also peaks later in the day—in the early evening between 5pm and 7pm. So if you’re finishing up a hard workout around that time of day, you’ll also maximize recovery. This also backs up the idea that later afternoon or early evening is the best time of day for more difficult workouts.
However, when you wake up in the morning, your liver’s carbohydrate stores are relatively empty, so an easy walk, light jog, yoga class, or bout of cardio can help to mobilize fatty acid stores, circulate blood and lymph fluid, and increase the activity of fat burning enzymes. So the morning is a good time of day for easy, aerobic “fasted cardio.”
This is why, whenever possible, I begin each day with a light, easy bout of physical activity. For me, this includes about 5 minutes of calisthenics (jumping jacks, push-ups, air squats, etc.) and about 10 minutes of light yoga, before breakfast. Then, time permitting, I include a hard, late afternoon or early evening workout with intense cardio and/or weight training.
How Late Is too Late to Work Out?
But when it comes to that harder afternoon or early evening session, how late is too late to work out? Should you work out before bed, or will it disrupt your sleep?
It turns out that Dr. Stuart Quan, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, has investigated this very question. In a recent CNN report, he points out that there is anecdotal evidence that some people have difficulty falling asleep after vigorous bouts of late-night exercise, and that because of high adrenaline, increased brain activity, and a difficulty “winding down,” these individuals in particular should be wary of working out too close to bedtime.
Dr. Quan recommends that if you fall into that group, you give yourself a few hours between your workout time and bed time to allow your body temperature to cool down to 98.60, your heart rate to return to its resting pace, and your adrenaline levels to lower.
However, for most people, exercising close to bedtime doesn’t appear to adversely affect sleep quality. One 2011 study found that people sleep just as well on nights when they exercised for 35 minutes directly before bed as they did on nights when they didn’t exercise before bed. In addition, the National Sleep Foundation’s 2013 “Sleep in America” pollopens PDF file found that 83% of people who exercised at any time of day – including late at night – reported sleeping significantly better than those who didn’t exercise at all. Only a tiny 3% of “late-day” exercisers reported sleeping worse on days when they exercised, compared to days when they didn’t.
So ultimately, it appears that the pros of exercising later in the day outweigh the cons. However, if you are someone who has a difficult time sleeping if you exercise close to bedtime, you may want to try the following Quick and Dirty Tips:
5 Tips to Sleep Better After a Workout
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Take a cold shower after your exercise routine to bring your body temperature back down more quickly. Try about 550 or cooler, for 2-5 minutes.
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Do a gradual cool-down after your workout rather than abruptly stopping while you’re still huffing and puffing, or hopping into your car or into the shower all hot and sweaty.
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Don’t exercise in the bedroom. While I’ve certainly given you plenty of ideas for home body-weight workouts, try to save the bedroom for sleeping or other bedroom-appropriate activities, such as intimacy, curling up with a good book, or meditation.
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Try deep breathing or meditation after your workout or before bed. Meditation can lower cortisol and adrenaline levels. Check out my article on deep breathing, or try the free meditation and mindfulness app from Headspace.
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Use natural calming supplements and essential oils in moderation. Try lavender oil on your pillow or in an air diffuser in your bedroom, as well as passionflower extract, magnesium powder, or kava kava. My fellow Quick and Dirty Tips podcast host, the House Call Doctor has some other good anti-anxiety tips which can help you if workouts late at night make you anxious or adversely affect your sleep.
If you have more questions about whether you should work out before bed, then join the discussion over at Facebook GetFitGuy.
Running at night image courtesy of Shutterstock.
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.