Abstract
Aim
Previous literature has shown that leisure time physical activities were associated with better sleep. The aim of this study is to further explore the effects of leisure-time aerobic exercise and muscle-strength activity on sleep duration.
Subjects and methods
Data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey Sample Adult Public Use File are analyzed. Age, gender, region, race, smoking, drinking, stress and anxiety are considered as potential confounders. Univariate and multivariate multinomial logistic regression models are fitted to estimate the effects of aerobic exercise and muscle-strength activity on sleep duration.
Results
A total of 24,190 adults were eligible for our study. 6.7 % of them sleep 5 h/day or fewer, 27.6 % sleep 9 h/day or more, only 65.9 % sleep 7 or 8 h/day. In the fully adjusted models, reference to the lowest level of aerobic exercise quartiles (≤P25), the ORs of P25–P50, P50–P75 and > P75 are 0.72 (95 %CI: 0.59–0.86), 0.66 (95 %CI: 0.55–0.79) and 0.60 (95 %CI: 0.49–0.74) for sleeping ≤5 h; 0.93 (95 %CI: 0.78–1.10), 0.70 (95 %CI: 0.58–0.83) and 0.64 (95 %CI: 0.52–0.78) for sleeping ≥9 h, respectively. The fully adjusted models of muscle-strength activity show that compared with lowest level of muscle-strength activity, the ORs of excessive muscle-strength activity for sleeping ≤5 h and ≥9 h are 1.52 (95 %CI: 1.16–2.01) and 1.32 (95 %CI: 1.00–1.72).
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that high levels of leisure-time aerobic exercise play a protective role in healthy sleep, while the excessive muscle-strength activity might increase the risk of both extremely short and long sleep durations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ainsworth BE, Sternfeld B, Richardson MT, Jackson K (2000) Evaluation of the Kaiser Physical Activity Survey in women. Med Sci Sports Exerc 32:1327–1338
Alley JR, Mazzochi JW, Smith CJ, Morris DM, Collier SR (2015) Effects of resistance exercise timing on sleep architecture and nocturnal blood pressure. J Strength Cond Res 29:1378–1385. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000000750
Baron KG, Reid KJ, Zee PC (2013) Exercise to improve sleep in insomnia: exploration of the bidirectional effects. J Clin Sleep Med 9:819–824. doi:10.5664/jcsm.2930
Blackwell DL, Lucas JW, Clarke TC (2014) Summary health statistics for U.S. adults: National Health Interview Survey. 2012 Vital Health Stat 10(256):1–161
Cappuccio FP, Cooper D, D’Elia L, Strazzullo P, Miller MA (2011) Sleep duration predicts cardiovascular outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. Eur Heart J 32:1484–1492. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehr007
Drenowatz C, Hand GA, Shook RP, Jakicic JM, Hebert JR, Burgess S, Blair SN (2015) The association between different types of exercise and energy expenditure in young nonoverweight and overweight adults. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 40:211–217. doi:10.1139/apnm-2014-0310
Driver HS, Taylor SR (2000) Exercise and sleep. Sleep Med Rev 4:387–402. doi:10.1053/smrv.2000.0110
Dzierzewski JM, Buman MP, Giacobbi PR Jr, Roberts BL, Aiken-Morgan AT, Marsiske M, McCrae CS (2014) Exercise and sleep in community-dwelling older adults: evidence for a reciprocal relationship. J Sleep Res 23:61–68. doi:10.1111/jsr.12078
Fairbrother K, Cartner B, Alley JR, Curry CD, Dickinson DL, Morris DM, Collier SR (2014) Effects of exercise timing on sleep architecture and nocturnal blood pressure in prehypertensives. Vasc Health Risk Manag 10:691–698. doi:10.2147/VHRM.S73688
Ferris LT, Williams JS, Shen CL, O’Keefe KA, Hale KB (2005) Resistance training improves sleep quality in older adults a pilot study. J Sports Sci Med 4:354–360
Haario P, Rahkonen O, Laaksonen M, Lahelma E, Lallukka T (2013) Bidirectional associations between insomnia symptoms and unhealthy behaviours. J Sleep Res 22:89–95. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2869.2012.01043.x
Jiang X, Hardy LL, Baur LA, Ding D, Wang L, Shi H (2015) Sleep duration, schedule and quality among urban Chinese children and adolescents: associations with routine after-school activities. PLoS One 10:e0115326. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115326
Kline CE et al (2013) Consistently high sports/exercise activity is associated with better sleep quality, continuity and depth in midlife women: the SWAN sleep study. Sleep 36:1279–1288. doi:10.5665/sleep.2946
Kojima M et al (2000) Sleep patterns and total mortality: a 12-year follow-up study in Japan. J Epidemiol 10:87–93
Kronholm E, Laatikainen T, Peltonen M, Sippola R, Partonen T (2011) Self-reported sleep duration, all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in Finland. Sleep Med 12:215–221. doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2010.07.021
Krueger PM, Friedman EM (2009) Sleep duration in the United States: a cross-sectional population-based study. Am J Epidemiol 169:1052–1063. doi:10.1093/aje/kwp023
Newman AB, Enright PL, Manolio TA, Haponik EF, Wahl PW (1997) Sleep disturbance, psychosocial correlates, and cardiovascular disease in 5201 older adults: the cardiovascular health study. J Am Geriatr Soc 45:1–7
Ng CL, Goh SY, Malhotra R, Ostbye T, Tai ES (2010) Minimal difference between aerobic and progressive resistance exercise on metabolic profile and fitness in older adults with diabetes mellitus: a randomised trial. J Physiother 56:163–170
Pack AI, Maislin G, Staley B, Pack FM, Rogers WC, George CF, Dinges DF (2006) Impaired performance in commercial drivers: role of sleep apnea and short sleep duration. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 174:446–454. doi:10.1164/rccm.200408-1146OC
Paparrigopoulos T, Tzavara C, Theleritis C, Psarros C, Soldatos C, Tountas Y (2010) Insomnia and its correlates in a representative sample of the Greek population. BMC Public Health 10:531. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-531
Pesonen AK et al (2011) Temporal associations between daytime physical activity and sleep in children. PLoS One 6:e22958. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022958
Reid KJ, Baron KG, Lu B, Naylor E, Wolfe L, Zee PC (2010) Aerobic exercise improves self-reported sleep and quality of life in older adults with insomnia. Sleep Med 11:934–940. doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2010.04.014
Santos RV, Tufik S, De Mello MT (2007) Exercise, sleep and cytokines: is there a relation? Sleep Med Rev 11:231–239. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2007.03.003
Troiano RP, Berrigan D, Dodd KW, Masse LC, Tilert T, McDowell M (2008) Physical activity in the United States measured by accelerometer. Med Sci Sports Exerc 40:181–188. doi:10.1249/mss.0b013e31815a51b3
Wennman H, Kronholm E, Partonen T, Tolvanen A, Peltonen M, Vasankari T, Borodulin K (2014) Physical activity and sleep profiles in Finnish men and women. BMC Public Health 14:82. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-82
Williams SM, Farmer VL, Taylor BJ, Taylor RW (2014) Do more active children sleep more? A repeated cross-sectional analysis using accelerometry. PloS One 9:e93117. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093117
Yang PY, Ho KH, Chen HC, Chien MY (2012) Exercise training improves sleep quality in middle-aged and older adults with sleep problems: a systematic review. J Physiother 58:157–163. doi:10.1016/S1836-9553(12)70106-6
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for making the data freely available.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 81302485), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (grant number: BS2013SF002), and Science and Technology Program for Basic Research of Qingdao (grant number: 13-1-4-189-jch).
Ethical approval
This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.
Conflict of interest
Each author declares that he/she has no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Main findings
1. The different effects of various type of physical activity on sleep were explored.
2. High levels of aerobic exercise play a protective role in healthy sleep duration.
3. There is no significant association between moderate muscle strength activity and sleep duration.
4. Excessive muscle strength activity might increase the risk of both short and long sleep duration.
Yili Wu and Lili Yang contributed equally to this work.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(DOCX 14 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wu, Y., Yang, L., Shen, X. et al. Effect of leisure-time aerobic exercise and muscle strength activity on sleep duration: results from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey. J Public Health 24, 117–124 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-015-0705-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-015-0705-4