Effects of acute bouts of evening resistance or endurance exercises on sleep EEG and salivary cortisol

This study underlines significant modifications of sleep quality and quantity after both moderate evening endurance and resistance exercises. Still, these effects cannot be considered as deleterious. In contrast to the resistance exercise, endurance exercise led to an increase in sleep EEG activity associated with hyperarousal during sleep and higher cortisol levels, suggesting an hyperarousal effect of endurance exercise performed in the evening. These results align with previous warning about the arousal effects of evening exercise but do not support the notion of deleterious effects on sleep. While these results provide support for the physiological effects of evening exercises on sleep, replication with larger sample size is needed.
Source: Frontiers in Physiology - Category: Physiology Source Type: research