- Late sleepers more sedentary and find it harder to exercise, study found
- Night owls also make up more reasons not to be active, research claims
- Adults should take 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week
17:53 EST, 4 June 2014
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05:05 EST, 5 June 2014
Night owls who wake up late are less likely to take exercise, according to a new report.
Latest research suggests night owls are more sedentary and feel that they have a harder time maintaining an exercise schedule.
Results show that later sleep times were associated with more self-reported minutes sitting, and sleep timing remained a significant predictor of sedentary minutes after controlling for age and sleep duration.
Those who sleep in late are more sedentary and struggle to keep up an exercise regime, a study has found. Night owls are also more likely to make up excuses why they can’t take up physical activity, research shows (library image)
However, people who characterized themselves as night owls reported more sitting time and more perceived barriers to exercise, including not having enough time for exercise and being unable to stick to an exercise schedule regardless of what time they actually went to bed or woke up.
‘We found that even among healthy, active individuals, sleep timing and circadian preference are related to activity patterns and attitudes toward physical activity,’ said principal investigator Kelly Glazer Baron, associate professor of neurology and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
‘Waking up late and being an evening person were related to more time spent sitting, particularly on weekends and with difficulty making time to exercise.’
It is recommended that adults take around 150 minutes of moderate activity exercise per week in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle (library image)
The research abstract was published recently in an online supplement of the journal Sleep, and was being presented Wednesday, June 4, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at SLEEP 2014, the 28th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.
The study group comprised 123 healthy adults with a self-reported sleep duration of at least 6.5 hours.
Sleep variables were measured by seven days of wrist actigraphy along with sleep diaries. Self-reported physical activity and attitudes toward exercise were evaluated by questionnaires including the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.
‘This was a highly active sample averaging 83 minutes of vigorous activity per week,’ said Glazer Baron.
‘Even among those who were able to exercise, waking up late made it and being an evening person made it perceived as more difficult.’
According to Baron, the study suggests that circadian factors should be taken into consideration as part of exercise recommendations and interventions, especially for less active adults.
‘Sleep timing should be taken into account when discussing exercise participation,’ she added.
‘We could expect that sleep timing would play even a larger role in a population that had more difficulty exercising.’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults get at last 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity every week and participate in muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days a week.
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yve,
UK, United Kingdom,
41 minutes ago
Rubbish. Night owls are the ones out dancing all night and doing late starting jobs. Coming home off night shifts and walking the dogs, turning out the animals, doing the housework, laughing at the huge rush hour traffic jams as the roads are clear when they themselves go to and from work, etc. Morning people are so conservative and have such sedentary lives. For some reason they criticise and seem jealous of the night people. They also seen to fold up about 10pm whilst night owls have energy far longer. It’s how you’re made.
ipayroadtax.com,
Midlands, United Kingdom,
2 hours ago
I have no probably cycling for miles after I get home from work. I regularly goto sleep after midnight.
null,
3 hours ago
I haven’t exercised in twenty years and I feel great . You always die in the end no matter what you do .
AL,
Athens, Greece,
3 hours ago
“Boxes†of thought, full of over-simplified bar-coded logic. Night time is “your timeâ€, a “psychological†time full of meaning. Many analysts leave out of their researches valuable psychological factors, determinants of a person’s identity. A whole nation is trying to turn away from Huxley’s depersonalized society, only to re-immerse into it in a differently “justified†way.
jonyarms,
Somewhere Hot, Tokelau,
2 hours ago
Tom,
Newcastle,
3 hours ago
…..and someone got paid to do this project??????
Eleanor,
France, France,
4 hours ago
Get a Dog and rescue a Baby Crow. That’ll get you out of bed, and provide exercise. I am rarely in bed asleep after 6 am these days. And I have been a late sleeper all my life.
Nick,
Surrey,
4 hours ago
Incredible. Being lazy means your less likely to do exercise? Research at its finest.
hatcult,
toronto, Canada,
7 hours ago
Total BS, I’ve been working out for decades and I have even been to the gym at 1AM. You can work in the evening and it’s less crowded. The self righteousness of morning people…
Exterm1nate,
Shaula, United Kingdom,
7 hours ago
But I exercise my jaw by chewing food with it all the time. I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.
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