Is It Okay to Work Out at Night, or Does It Affect Your Sleep?

When you’ve been struggling to drift off, you’ve probably tried all forms of strategies to go to sleep faster: Put your phone away at an honest hour, make your bedroom relaxing, and stop exercising before bed.

Wait, delay. Does figuring out at night really mess together with your sleep?

It’s a legitimate query for those who don’t have tons of free time to exercise in the course of the day; for numerous people, evenings will be the only choice to squeeze in a session. But many of us are reluctant to sweat before they sleep because they think a workout might rile up their body and mind, making it hard to wind down.

Rest assured: A 2019 review published within the journal Sports Medicine concluded that the science does not support the concept exercise before bed revs you up—“relatively the other,” the researchers wrote. A separate 2022 review published in Nature and Science of Sleep supported that statement and added that some moderate-intensity evening routines helped people sleep higher.

There’s no “magic hour” for fitness, and “figuring out at night is healthier than no exercise in any respect,” Thom Manning, MS, CSCS, a sleep and recovery coach with the fitness app Future, tells SELF. That said, some routines—mainly, super intense exercise done very near bedtime—can make getting quality sleep just a little trickier. Here’s what it is best to know.

Yes, certain nighttime workouts can hinder your sleep.

Doing intense workouts—say, Peloton’s latest HIIT cycling class or a sprint-heavy running session—too near bedtime (inside an hour or so) can mess together with your body’s thermoregulation, a process that’s key to good sleep since it messes together with your core temperature, Thomas Kilkenny, DO, the director of Staten Island University Hospital’s Institute of Sleep Medicine, tells SELF.

“The brain falls asleep higher on a decreasing temperature curve,” he explains. That drop in body temperature naturally starts about two hours before you fall asleep. So for those who raise your internal temperature through vigorous physical activity—whether you were lifting heavy or doing cardio—without giving yourself enough cooldown time, your sleep quality may suffer.

Doing these high-intensity workouts before bed also may make it harder to go to sleep to start with, likely because they increase your heart rate, as a small 2014 study within the European Journal of Applied Physiology suggests. The results of intense exercise proceed even after you nod off too. Bouts of hard exercise before bed can result in less REM sleep, a stage that’s crucial for processing emotions, memory consolidation, brain development, and more.

So…what’s one of the best sort of workout to do at night?

You don’t need to stop exercising before bed if that’s the time that works best together with your schedule. You could just must tweak your workouts for those who’re not sleeping great after them.

Based on the research we have now, Dr. Kilkenny recommends trying moderate-intensity exercise for those who prefer to work out at night. In keeping with the 2022 review in Nature and Science of Sleep, any such activity may support more restorative sleep—which is vital for the repair and regeneration of tissues throughout your body. This implies training within the evening might also enhance post-exercise recovery, helping to fix any tiny muscle tears that exercise may cause and allowing them to grow back stronger.