TWELVE easy exercises that will help you get to sleep faster

Virgin Radio

4 Mar 2022, 16:52

There's nothing better than a bit of quality shut-eye. But how hard is it to get some well-deserved zzzzzzs? Easier than you think with a little help from the experts and a dozen exercises.

Check out these moves that scientists claim improve your sleep, helping you get to the land of nod faster and stay in a deep slumber for longer.

Is sleep a main priority in your routine? It should be. If you don't get enough, you could be prone to weight gain, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and inflammation, which increase the risk of strokes, heart attacks and premature death.

Study author, Dr Angelique Brellenthin, from Iowa State University in the US, said: “While both aerobic and resistance exercise are important for overall health, our results suggest that resistance exercises may be superior when it comes to getting better ZZZs at night.”

In the study, the people who did resistance exercise 'increased their sleep by 40 minutes per night in 12 months (that's four hours and 36 minutes).

Aerobic exercisers got 23 minutes extra sleep and people who did a mixture got 17 minutes more.

Dr Brellenthin, an assistant professor of kinesiology said: “If your sleep has got noticeably worse over the past two stressful years, consider incorporating two or more resistance exercise training sessions into your regular exercise routine to improve your general muscle and bone health, as well as your sleep.”

How to do resistance training

The Sun report that 'each workout was one hour long and worked all the major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms) in one session, rather than isolation work'.

Do eight to 16 repetitions of each exercise for three sets.

The exercises included:

Leg press
Chest press
Pulldown
Leg curl
Leg extension
Biceps curl
Triceps pushdown
Shoulder press
Abdominal crunch
Lower back extension
Torso rotation
Hip abduction

The NHS advises getting the major muscle groups going at least twice a week, including at least 150 minutes of activity like a brisk walking or riding a bike, and 75 minutes of sweat-inducing activity a week like running or skipping.

Other good ways to get the body moving, according to the NHS, is by doing 'yoga, pilates, tai chi, resistance bands, heavy gardening and exercises that use your own body weight, such as push ups, as muscle-strengthening activities'.

Time to get moving...