LONDON: Exercising two or more times a week can significantly reduce the risk of insomnia, a new study has found.
Researchers at Imperial College London in the UK and Reykjavík Universe in Iceland examined data from 4,339 people from nine European countries, half of whom were women.
Participants in the study were initially asked questions about their exercise habits. The researchers then asked them the same questions again a decade later. The subjects were asked questions about insomnia symptoms along with their average sleep duration.
Research has shown that people who exercise regularly are 42 percent less likely to have sleep problems and 22 percent less likely to suffer from insomnia than those who don’t exercise.
Even people who didn’t exercise but started exercising during the study were 21 percent less likely to have sleep problems than those who were consistently inactive.
Those who exercised two or more times a week for at least one hour were classified as physically active.
Those who maintained their exercise habits after a decade were considered persistently active and accounted for 25% of the total population.
37% of people were chronically inactive. 18 percent of people were active while 20 percent of people were inactive.
According to the analysis of the obtained data, the symptoms of insomnia were observed less in physically active people.
