Want to maximize your sleep, but not sure how to do it? A new study may have some answers.
A recent meta-analysis shows that doing high-intensity yoga for 30 minutes twice a week could be the best exercise-related cure for poor sleep. The report said the second-most-helpful exercise is walking, followed by resistance exercise.
Researchers at China’s Harbin Sport University conducted the study, which was published on July 11 in Sleep and Biological Rhythms. After analyzing the data from 30 trials that involved 2,500 participants with sleep disturbances, they ranked which forms of exercise most helped with sleep. The study subjects were of all ages and came from over 12 countries.
Why Yoga Helps Sleep
It isn’t yet clear why yoga can help people sleep more soundly, but there are some predictions.
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For one, yoga can help regulate breathing. Breath control can trigger the parasympathetic nervous system that is involved in rest and digestion, according to a 2018 study.
Other studies point to yoga’s ability to regulate brainwave activity, which is also known to lead to deeper sleep.
Still, this study doesn’t mean yoga will be everyone’s solution for sleep troubles.
“Caution should be exercised when interpreting findings from studies on sleep disturbances, given the limited number of studies included and the unique characteristics of the sleep disturbances population,” said researchers at Harbin Sport University, according to ScienceAlert. “Further high-quality research is needed to confirm these findings.”
Researchers will need to continue analyzing sleep habits and exercise to understand which forms benefit different types of people, including men versus women and younger people versus older, said Arsenio Páez, a sleep researcher at Montreal’s Concordia University.
“Some kinds of interventions may work well for someone who is in their 30s but be more difficult for someone who is in their 80s,” he said.
For now, experts suggest working out in whichever form is preferable. After all, exercise in general has been proven to benefit sleep.
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