There’s nothing quite as brutal as lying wide awake in the small hours, watching the bedroom clock creep forward while your mind races through every awkward conversation you had in 2014.
Tossing and turning until dawn doesn’t just leave you feeling like an absolute zombie the next morning, either. Chronic broken sleep takes a massive toll on your brain function, clouding your concentration and playing complete havoc with your ability to lock in memories.
If you’re sick of staring at the ceiling and dreading the daytime brain fog that follows, you don’t necessarily have to resort to heavy sleeping tablets or hours of meditation apps. Fresh research suggests that a remarkably simple, low-effort movement routine could be the missing piece of the puzzle. Adding this quick physical fix into your daytime routine helps reset your internal body clock, and it acts like a protective shield for your cognitive health, keeping your memory sharp even after the roughest night on the mattress.
Sleep deprivation is a widespread problem.
Sleep deprivation is a serious issue, thought to affect roughly one in three adults worldwide. Poor quality sleep doesn’t just leave you feeling groggy either. It can negatively impact both physical and mental health, while also increasing the risk of accidents.
According to a professor from McGill University’s School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, sleep loss affects nearly every aspect of how we think and function day to day. The problem is, plenty of people simply can’t stop what they’re doing to catch up on rest whenever they need it. That’s exactly why his research team set out to explore whether exercise, or even a short nap, might help offset some of the brain’s usual response to sleep loss.
The researchers made an interesting discovery.
The study involved 54 healthy young adults, all of whom stayed awake for 30 hours under close laboratory supervision. Participants were then split into three groups: one completed a 20-minute cycling session, another took a 90-minute nap, and a third group did neither.
Three days later, researchers tested everyone’s memory recall for images they’d viewed straight after their assigned activity. Both the group who exercised and the group who napped performed noticeably better on the memory test compared to those who’d done nothing at all, coming in around 22% better despite having gone 30 hours without sleep.
Exercise and napping seem to help the brain in different ways.
According to the lead professor, even a brief bout of exercise appears capable of helping preserve one of our most important cognitive abilities, memory. Brain scans taken during the study revealed that exercise and napping actually appear to help memory recall through two quite different mechanisms.
Napping seemed to help the brain recharge more generally, making it easier to absorb and retain new information afterward. Exercise, on the other hand, appeared to help the brain use whatever mental resources it had left more efficiently, rather than simply topping up depleted energy the way sleep does.
Why this could matter in high stakes workplaces.
The researchers believe these findings could inform fatigue management strategies in workplaces where sleep loss is common, and where mistakes can carry serious consequences, healthcare settings being an obvious example.
According to the study’s first author, a doctoral candidate in McGill’s Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, a proper nap simply isn’t always realistic in the middle of a shift. Exercise, by comparison, is accessible, inexpensive, and easy to fit in, making it a promising tool for helping people stay mentally sharp when sleep is in short supply.
Regular activity might offer broader protection too.
This isn’t the first study to suggest physical activity can help counter some of the negative effects of poor sleep more generally. Previous research found that people who completed at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, each week appeared to be somewhat protected against the wider health effects typically linked to poor sleep.
Beyond helping in the moment after a sleepless night, regular exercise has also been shown to improve overall sleep quality over time, creating something of a positive cycle between movement and rest. That said, if you’re dealing with chronic sleep deprivation that’s impacting your wellbeing, speak to a specialist who can offer proper, tailored support, rather than relying on quick fixes like a short workout alone.
