Trouble sleeping? It may be time to switch up your exercise routine. Celebrity trainer and creator of THE WALL [1] and WIMBERLEAN [2], Jason Wimberly advises you to ditch the evening workouts and opt for early a.m. [3] in lieu of a twilight sweat sesh, as they may be harming your sleep cycle.
While some studies point to evening workouts being beneficial [5], others conclude that early morning exercise is the most advantageous [6] — and Jason definitely backs this up.
"A late-night workout can really be disadvantageous for you. Our bodies are meant to shut down at a certain point in the day."
"Getting a workout in at any time is great, and I never tell someone to not do a workout," Jason said. "But a late-night workout can really be disadvantageous for you. Our bodies are meant to shut down [7] at a certain point in the day."
At night, "your body is already producing a chemical to shut your brain down," Jason said. "Our bodies start producing melatonin (a hormone that helps regulate sleep) as soon as the sun goes down; for most of us that's around 7 or 8. Fighting that [hormone] to get a workout in just because you 'need to' is not always the best idea. Hormonally and based on human circadian rhythms, working out after 8 p.m. should never happen."
Jason related vigorous p.m. workouts to screen time on your phone, which can be stimulating for the brain and counterproductive to rest [9]. "We're looking at screens all the time, and anybody will tell you that you're not supposed to look at a screen or have screen time after a certain time of day." He said the same goes for exercise.
"Hormonally and based on human circadian rhythms, working out after 8 p.m. should never happen."
"I really try and stay away from night workouts [10] for my clients and myself — with the boost of endorphins from a workout after 6 o'clock, it puts my brain into overdrive! If I work out after 6 p.m., I can't sleep," he said. "I taught a class at 7 o'clock [the other night] and I couldn't fall asleep [11] until 11 p.m., which for me is like 3 in the morning! [laughs] My husband was like, what's wrong with you?!"
If your schedule consistently prevents you from doing a morning workout, he said the second most optimal time is between 1 and 3 p.m., but if that time frame is also impossible, he said try activities that are "soothing to the body [12] and not super high intensity," like some "elliptical work that won't boost your heart rate too much, yoga, or more restorative work [13] that's not going to give you that max heart rate. That's when your body goes into that calorie-burning area, that endorphin push — it's going to be hard to sleep."