Original article
Daily Morning Running for 3 Weeks Improved Sleep and Psychological Functioning in Healthy Adolescents Compared With Controls

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.02.020Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To compare sleep electroencephalographic patterns and psychological functioning of healthy adolescents running regularly in the mornings with those of control subjects. Although several studies have shown that regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise is related to favorable sleep and psychological functioning in adolescents, research on the effectiveness of short interventions is more limited.

Methods

Fifty-one adolescents (mean age = 18.30 years; 27 female [53%]) took part in the study; they were randomly assigned either to a running or to a control group. The running group went running every morning for 30 minutes at moderate intensity during weekdays for 3 consecutive weeks. Sleep electroencephalographic patterns and psychological functioning were assessed in both groups before and after the 3-week period. All participants also kept a sleep log for 3 weeks.

Results

Objective sleep improved (slow-wave sleep increased; sleep onset latency decreased) in the running group compared with the control group. Subjective sleep quality, mood, and concentration during the day improved, whereas sleepiness during the day decreased.

Conclusions

Thirty minutes of running in the morning during weekdays for 3 consecutive weeks impacted positively on sleep and psychological functioning in healthy adolescents compared with control subjects. Running is inexpensive and easy to implement during school schedules, and as both objective and subjective improvements were observed within 3 weeks, regular physical exercise should be promoted.

Section snippets

Sample

Participants were recruited from a high school in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, a district of the German-speaking northwestern part of Switzerland. Figure 1 shows the study flowchart and dropout rates. Of the 60 adolescents originally approached, 51 (85%) completed the study (see Figure 1; age: mean [M] = 18.30 years; standard deviation [SD] = .89; range: 17.5–19.5 years): 27 were female (age: M = 18.11 years, SD = .80) and 24 were male (age: M = 18.13 years, SD = 1.00). Participants were

Daily log

Table 1, Table 2 provide the descriptive and inferential statistical overview of the data from the daily log, separately by groups (RG vs. CG) and time (weeks 1–3, weekdays and weekend days).

Sleep quality significantly increased over time and was significantly higher in the RG compared with the CG; the group × time interaction was also significant, reflecting a significantly greater increase in sleep quality over time in the RG than in the CG (Figure 2).

Mood in the morning significantly

Discussion

The key finding of the present study is that, compared with a control condition, an intervention involving running for 30 minutes in the morning daily during weekdays for 3 consecutive weeks improved sleep (objectively and subjectively) and psychological functioning. The results add to the existing literature in showing that even a short-term intervention of regular running in the morning does have a favorable impact on the sleep and psychological functioning of healthy adolescents.

Two

Conclusion

Moderate running in the morning for 3 consecutive weeks impacted positively on objective and subjective sleep and psychological functioning among healthy adolescents. Moderate, but regular, exercise such as running should be promoted as both a remedy and a preventative measure for poor sleep and poor psychological functioning.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Marielle Koenig and Vladimir Djurdjevic for sleep EEG scoring. Moreover, they are grateful to Ladina Schlatter for data collection and data entry. Finally, they thank Nick Emler (Surrey, UK) for proofreading the manuscript.

The entire study was conducted without external funding, and the authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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    N.K. and M.G. contributed equally to this work.

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