Exercise and Sleep. Why is exercise important for sleep?

With the 2024 Olympics having us all glued to our TV screens, we were interested to understand just how important exercise is for getting that quality sleep we strive for. We asked Paul, Founder & Head Coach at Tribal Health & Performance, to take us through some of the key approaches that the Tribal team practice and believe in.

We are a Health & Performance coaching facility. Our members benefit from our modern approach to training that is inspired by nature, ancestral health and every human's innate athletic potential. 

The small team at Tribal is determined to drive performance, specialising in coaching endurance athletics like triathlon, swimming, cycling and running without ever forgetting our health first approach, in fact, we believe that the greatest performance peaks are achieved when built upon a strong health foundation. 

It is that determination to always prioritise health that means that we love to work with both athletes chasing performance within endurance sports, but also, everyday athletes aiming to drive greater life experience through increased function and work capacity.

Meeting this minimum effective dose for movement will assist your energy through the day and will go a long way to helping you to unwind ready to sleep when the time is right. 

Another major impact of exercise is the efficiency of your aerobic system and breathing mechanics on your sleep. When resting and sleeping our breath should come from our nose rather than mouth - waking with a dry mouth suggests your mouth is agape overnight and you have the potential to be over breathing. This is an early sign that without intervention you may be at risk of developing serious sleep issues like sleep apnea. 

In his book ‘Breathe’, James Nestor explores the role of breathing on our day-to-day health - one of the tenants of the book is that - if we want to improve our breathing mechanics - we have to practice, and that practice at rest includes breathing low into our diaphragm, making our exhalation slow and keeping our mouth shut. 

As well as practicing your breathing through the day - adding a small dose of aerobic conditioning to your week can do wonders for improving your work capacity and making your breathing rate at rest lower and slower. Our minimum dose for ‘aerobic conditioning’ complements the movement accumulation mentioned previously - it is our belief that everybody should be driving their heart rates to an uncomfortable level at least once a week. What this session looks like is relative to your current conditioning - for an healthy individual with all health foundations in place, this session could be a series of ‘hill sprints’ with walk down recoveries, for somebody new to exercise, it might be that for 3-5 minutes a week you increase the pace of your walk to make yourself slightly breathless. 

There is no drug or intervention more powerful than exercise and movement for impacting our health. A major part of this is the impact of adequate movement and fitness upon our sleep duration and quality. 

Absolutely, when observing habits of the 21st century there seems to be a desperation around exercise that is not healthy. It is our belief at Tribal that we need to help individuals observe and modify this behaviour. 

 An understanding of our circadian rhythm is important here - all our bodily processes are controlled externally by the sun and internally by our hormones - syncing our external environment to our internal bodily processes does wonders for our health. Simply put, when it’s dark - we should be resting and sleeping, during daylight - we should be largely active. 

All too often, a sedentary and stressful day in the office or at work is often followed by an evening spent cramming a stress inducing, falsely lit, loud workout - whilst taking the time out of your day to exercise should be applauded - this relationship of all day sedentary followed by a revving up of our system will make it difficult for you to unwind through an evening, fall asleep efficiently and get the depth of sleep required for physical restoration impacting the health benefits of your chosen activity.

When you observe a commercial gym environment, all too often you can see the strain of desperation etched on individuals faces, we love hard-work, but, chasing calories on a treadmill or bike in pursuit of a calorie deficit before the weekend or pushing an exercise so far it creates pain, discomfort and an inability to move tomorrow will negatively impact your ability to rest. 

The body loves to feel work, but too much strain often leads to inadequate and jittery sleep.

The remedy is to slow down and take a long view on your health & performance - build the health foundations and understand that fitness comes slowly, fatigue comes fast - long-term success comes to those that prioritise the basics of restful sleep, nutrition, physical activity and stress management so we can exercise with consistency, with intensity and without hurting ourselves.

Being a strong, healthy human is critical to high quality sleep. That means that long-term there is no one exercise that is best for sleep - having great work capacity in the form of aerobic conditioning, healthy joints and body comfort that comes with the practice of mobility and flexibility, and a strong and stable system created by practicing strength training. 

In the short-term, if you are looking to improve your chances of slipping into some high-quality sleep tonight. Develop a breathing and mobility practice that can help you decompress before bed. 21st century life generally has our nervous system revved up and it’s important to find some calm to be able to rest. 

Try this: Take a hot shower or bath 2 hours before bed. Find a space and complete 8-10 stretches, holding each stretch for 90-120 seconds. Here is the key - avoid trying to push the stretches too far, instead, focus on your breathing - to balance the nervous system, breathe easy, without strain aim to elongate the exhale - the longer your exhale the more your heart rate drops and the body calms. 

To boost your natural circadian rhythm and therefore sleep better there are two clear time slots that are best for exercise.

Upon sunrise we release catecholamines that drive us to wake up and get going - for this reason, using energy in the morning is a great practice. After the overnight fast, completing some light aerobic exercise (training low) means you will prioritise fats as your primary fuel and benefit from some great aerobic development, moderating your intensity first thing in the morning can help you to control hunger cravings and energy later in the day. 

Because of the natural relaxation that occurs overnight - it is important that you warm up adequately for any intensive conditioning or strength training in the morning. That said, testosterone and growth hormone levels are higher in the morning than in the evening so there is great potential for adaptation.

This is where your performance potential peaks, you will be at your most robust and are likely to set some personal bests - for this reason you are likely to enjoy training at this time of day. 

The next best option is through the day, if this works for you - that's great!! Please don’t take this as a reason to not move. 

Finally, training in the evening or through the night should only be used if needed in extreme circumstances. The impacts upon your sleep are likely to be profound and there will be immediate health consequences to the following 24 hours including pre-diabetes, low energy and brain fog. Instead of training, look to use light movement and a mobility practice to help with the decompression needed at the end of the day.

Sleep and keeping active go hand in hand, and we were interested to hear Tribals tips and the science behind how our bodies are naturally in tune with the sun and our own internal hormones. If your looking to create a healthy routine, and interested to find bespoke support, contact Tribal for expert advice or visit their Instagram page to keep up with their latest news.