Dear Lifehacker, I get up at 5am for work, and when I get home I’m cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, spending time with my family and then I’m in bed at 9pm. If I were to exercise daily, it would be cutting into my bedtime, so I want to know – for general health, am I better off getting an hour’s exercise in before hitting the hay, or will the extra hour’s sleep be better for me? Alternatively, can you see a time in my schedule where I might be able to fit some physical activity in? Cheers, Wanting To Be Healthier
Dear WTBH,
As a sentient blob permanently grafted to his computer screen, I’m not the best person to answer this question. So I asked Professor Greg Roach, a professor at the Appleton Institute for Behavioural Science instead.
Professor Roach specialises in sleep and circadian rhythms and its effect on neurobehavioural performance. He has headed several laboratory-based studies into chronic sleep loss and irregular sleep/wake patterns. Unsurprisingly, Roach is in the more-sleep, less-exercise camp.
“My opinion is that if you have limited time, you are better off getting less exercise than less sleep,” Roach explained. “This is because sleep is fundamental. If you miss too much, you can’t be happy, you can’t be healthy and you can’t be effective at work.”
Professor Roach also pointed out that it’s possible to “accidentally” get exercise via day-to-day activities — walking from the train station to work, or jogging to avoid the rain, for example. By contrast, it’s not possible to accidentally catch up on sleep during the day. You’re either awake, or you’re not.
In addition to this, studies have shown that sleep loss is accumulative, which means you’ll start to feel worse if you skip just one hour multiple days in a week.
“If you miss out an hour on Monday, then you’re one hour down. Then if you do the same thing on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday you’re actually five hours down. This can impact your capacity to work and function effectively as well as your mood. If you keep doing it, it can be detrimental to your long-term health. [This] includes diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.”
With that said, Professor Roach acknowledged that to be truly happy and healthy, sleep and an active lifestyle go hand in hand. However, if you absolutely must choose one or the other, you’re better off getting a full night’s sleep.
“Think about it this way: If you skipped exercise for week, the affect on your health wouldn’t be dramatic. If you didn’t sleep for a week, you would be in a very, very bad way. If you can’t organise your sleeping patterns to take into account that you’re getting up earlier to hit the gym, then you’re actually going to be doing yourself a disservice.”
So there you have it. If it comes down to one or the other, you should skip the early gym session and stay warm ‘n’ toasty in bed. This makes us so happy.
As to the second part of your question, if you work in an office it might be possible to get some exercise on the job. Standing desks, inflatable fitness balls and even desk treadmills can be incorporated into most workplace layouts with minimal fuss. You just need to convince your manager that investing in the equipment will transform you into a healthier, happier and more productive worker. Good luck!
Cheers
Lifehacker
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Comments
8 responses to “Ask LH: Is It Better To Get More Sleep Or More Exercise?”
Why not use the time with your family as time for exercise? It would give your kids a good role model and get them and your partner active as well. People think that there needs to be some formal time to do exercise and to do it at a gym. But in all honesty, its about raising your heart rate and getting yourself moving. Play soccer with your kids, go on a walk with them and explore the neighbourhood (you might entice them with Pokemon Go hunting or something like that). Join a local sports club with them. At the end of the day it comes down to how much of a priority being active is. If its enough of a priority, you will make time, not find time for it
Standing desks are fine (though I don’t think mine gets me any exercise), but show me someone who can do their desk job effectively on a treadmill, and I’ll show you someone whose job can be replaced with some software.
I am a programmer. I have a under desk exercise bike.
Seriously? That sounds awesome! How is it for noise? I’m a programmer as well, and we do tend to get a bit annoyed at extraneous noise :). Especially in our awful open-plan offices.
One of these
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PORTABLE-EXERCISER-MINI-BIKE-TRAINER-EXERCISE-MACHINE-DESK-HOME-GYM-PEDAL-CYCLE-/252383407747
It’s not that noisy, but I don’t go nuts on it. The idea is to just keep my legs moving a bit. Sometimes I just move back and forward. You may have issues depending on the height of your desk, and length of your legs. A friend looked at one but he couldn’t fit.
One of these seems like it could be another good alternative.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hovr-unconsciously-burn-more-calories-at-work-fitness-design#/
You only need 15 minutes of HIIT exercise daily, so sleep for the other 45m.
Exercise while you clean. Do it vigorously, and run around the house. Incorporate a few burpees, or planks in.
as someone has said, HIT is the answer here mate.