If you’re 60 or over and suffer from insomnia, you might consider lifting weights before going to bed. A study analyzing the effects of different exercises on sleep suggested that weight or resistance training is the most effective exercise to help you nod off — but some other fitness activities are helpful, too, according to a report in the BMJ Family Medicine and Community Health.
The metanalysis (meaning the study combined data from many other similar studies) examined how different kinds of exercises improved each participant’s sleep score, based on a questionnaire. The study looked at the sleep benefits of five bedtime fitness regimes: aerobic/endurance, strength/resistance, balance, flexibility, and combo.
“The outcomes of this study indicate that strengthening exercise is the most efficacious among others, followed by aerobic exercise and combination exercise,” according to the authors in the paper. “Nevertheless, all these types of exercise improve sleep quality beyond significant differences.”
