Are you a victim to signing up for a late evening high-intensity workout class to have to get to bed almost immediately after? Now I say victim but what I really mean is that some people don’t have the ability to book an evening class. They are the ones that have to wake up obnoxiously by their alarm clock just to fall into the trap of seeing how many times they can hit snooze before running out the door and making it to class just in time. For those that do have the flexibility to be able to sneak into a class in the evening, there is something you may need to know before keeping that in your routine.

Does working out in the evening really affect my sleep?

If you are someone that likes to work out in the evening, but also go to bed early, then working out in the evening may not be the best schedule for you. Research published in the journal Sports Medicine shows that working out in the evening could affect your ability to sleep well at night. For some people, they enjoy being able to get the frustrations of work out of them at the end of the day to better be able to leave the stress at the gym and sleep better at night aka no more trying to fall asleep while you have a million things racing in your head. However, it was shown that your body still has an elevated heart rate of up to 20bmp higher than a regular resting heart rate up to one hour after completing a workout.

Certainly, if you are trying to fall asleep and sleep well, your body is still working on getting your body back to its resting state. In other words, you could actually have a hard time falling asleep even though in your mind you were thinking that getting a good workout in would leave you tired to fall asleep quickly. Your body isn’t being given enough recovery time–it needs at least an hour.

It seems that the overall rule of thumb is giving your body one hour between working out and trying to get some good sleep. So next time you are looking to sign up for your workouts for the week, maybe ask yourself if you can try working out in the morning or sneaking in a lunchtime sweat sesh!

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