Of course, this begs the question: Which is more important—rising an hour early to squeeze in a morning workout, or savoring that extra time in bed?
“The important thing to remember here is that nobody was protected unless they were active,” McClain says. “So I certainly don’t think the take-home message is to sacrifice activity to get more sleep. But I think it needs to be more of a conscious thought that both physical activity and sleep are important factors for young to middle-aged women.”
Dr. Rapoport agrees that finding the right balance is key: “Both sleep and exercise seem to be important, and one certainly feels better if one gets both. So unless you are lucky enough to not need the sleep and feel well without it, I would try to exercise in a way that does not cut into your rest.” Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep to function optimally the next day.
The good news is that sleep and exercise already have something of a relationship: Getting enough of one can make it easier to accomplish the other.
“Exercise is known to help with sleep if you don’t do it just before bedtime,” possibly because it promotes overall good health and helps enhance the body’s circadian rhythm, which promotes activity during the day and resting at night, says Dr. Rapoport.
While specific exercise advice couldn’t be drawn from this study, McClain refers to the government’s physical activity guidelines that suggest getting at least five hours of moderate exercise or two-and-a-half hours of intensive exercise each week. He adds, “Getting more than just the minimum recommendation is a good place to start for protection against cancer.”
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Comments (2)
A Possible Explanation of the Connection of Poor Sleep and Increased Physical Exercise
Copyright 2008, James Michael Howard, Fayetteville, Arkansas
It is my hypothesis that low DHEA may trigger cancer (Annals of Internal Medicine 2005; 142: 471-472). Cancer occurs most often in old age when DHEA has declined to very low levels.
It is also my hypothesis that the function of sleep is to increase DHEA. Poor sleep would indicate a situation of poor DHEA production. While it is known that exercise increases DHEA and is the reason, I suggest, that exercise reduces cancer risk, exercise, according to my work, also uses DHEA. Individuals who exercise excessively, especially if they are not sleeping well and producing sufficient DHEA, might actually use more DHEA than they produce. This reduces DHEA and increases cancer risk.
I suggest this new finding that poor sleep and excessive exercise increase cancer risk is caused by an overall reduction in DHEA.
Very nice site!