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Effect of leisure-time aerobic exercise and muscle strength activity on sleep duration: results from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey

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Abstract

Aim

Previous literature has shown that leisure time physical activities were associated with better sleep. The aim of this study is to further explore the effects of leisure-time aerobic exercise and muscle-strength activity on sleep duration.

Subjects and methods

Data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey Sample Adult Public Use File are analyzed. Age, gender, region, race, smoking, drinking, stress and anxiety are considered as potential confounders. Univariate and multivariate multinomial logistic regression models are fitted to estimate the effects of aerobic exercise and muscle-strength activity on sleep duration.

Results

A total of 24,190 adults were eligible for our study. 6.7 % of them sleep 5 h/day or fewer, 27.6 % sleep 9 h/day or more, only 65.9 % sleep 7 or 8 h/day. In the fully adjusted models, reference to the lowest level of aerobic exercise quartiles (≤P25), the ORs of P25–P50, P50–P75 and > P75 are 0.72 (95 %CI: 0.59–0.86), 0.66 (95 %CI: 0.55–0.79) and 0.60 (95 %CI: 0.49–0.74) for sleeping ≤5 h; 0.93 (95 %CI: 0.78–1.10), 0.70 (95 %CI: 0.58–0.83) and 0.64 (95 %CI: 0.52–0.78) for sleeping ≥9 h, respectively. The fully adjusted models of muscle-strength activity show that compared with lowest level of muscle-strength activity, the ORs of excessive muscle-strength activity for sleeping ≤5 h and ≥9 h are 1.52 (95 %CI: 1.16–2.01) and 1.32 (95 %CI: 1.00–1.72).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that high levels of leisure-time aerobic exercise play a protective role in healthy sleep, while the excessive muscle-strength activity might increase the risk of both extremely short and long sleep durations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for making the data freely available.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

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Correspondence to Yili Wu.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 81302485), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (grant number: BS2013SF002), and Science and Technology Program for Basic Research of Qingdao (grant number: 13-1-4-189-jch).

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Conflict of interest

Each author declares that he/she has no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Main findings

1. The different effects of various type of physical activity on sleep were explored.

2. High levels of aerobic exercise play a protective role in healthy sleep duration.

3. There is no significant association between moderate muscle strength activity and sleep duration.

4. Excessive muscle strength activity might increase the risk of both short and long sleep duration.

Yili Wu and Lili Yang contributed equally to this work.

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Wu, Y., Yang, L., Shen, X. et al. Effect of leisure-time aerobic exercise and muscle strength activity on sleep duration: results from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey. J Public Health 24, 117–124 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-015-0705-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-015-0705-4

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