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According to a study, if you want to sleep well, going to the gym is better than running.
Researchers found that lifting weights or doing push-ups can provide sleep-deprived people with 17 minutes more sleep per night than jogging or cycling.
It's believed that tiny tears in your muscles after strength training may need more sleep to heal properly.
The study examined 386 overweight or obese people aged 35 to 70 who led sedentary lives and had relatively high blood pressure.
They were divided into four groups, with one group doing no exercise and another spending three hours a week doing strength training on gym equipment.
A third group completed three hours of aerobic exercise each week, running on a treadmill or using an exercise bike. The final group completed a combination of both types of exercises.
All participants in the study reported on their sleep quality, how long they slept and how much time they actually slept in bed.
Among study participants who didn't get at least seven hours of sleep at the start of exercise sessions, those who ran and biked or used an elliptical machine gained an average of 23 minutes of sleep per night.
But that increased to 40 extra minutes of sleep for those who did the strength training.
Going to the gym is better than running if you want a good night's sleep and could give you 17 minutes of extra sleep a night, a study suggests (File)
People in the resistance exercise and combined exercise groups also spent more time sleeping in bed, while those in the resistance group tended to quit three minutes earlier than those in other groups.
Sleep quality and sleep disturbance improved in all groups, including the group that did not exercise.
Lead researcher Angelique Brellenthin from Iowa State University in the US said that while aerobic exercise is often recommended for people with insomnia, there has been little research on the effects of resistance training on sleep.
She added: "While both aerobic and resistance exercise are important for overall health, our results suggest that resistance exercise may be superior when it comes to getting better exercise at night.
“Therefore, if your sleep has noticeably worsened over the past two stressful years, consider incorporating two or more strength training sessions into your regular exercise routine to improve your overall muscle and bone health and sleep.”
The study, presented at the American Heart Association Epidemiology and Prevention Conference in Chicago, asked people to run and cycle at moderate to vigorous intensity.
Participants in the resistance group had fitness equipment adjusted to their individual fitness level, allowing them to lift weights until exhaustion.
They performed three sets of eight to 16 repetitions on resistance machines to work all major muscle groups in one session.
These included leg press, chest press, pulldown, leg curl, leg extension, bicep curl, tricep press, shoulder press, abdominal press and lumbar back extension.
After 12 months, the sleep-deprived people in the strength training group saw their sleep improve by 40 minutes per night, compared to just about 17 minutes for those who did both types of exercise.
Experts also suspect that muscles that are forced to grow through exercise release hormones that improve sleep.
Those in the resistance group reported falling asleep three minutes earlier on average than those in the other groups.
According to the results, someone who goes to bed for eight hours would lie awake for 20 minutes less at night after strength training.
This was based on a 4 percent improvement in awake time reported by the strength training group.
Sleep quality and sleep disorders, such as getting up to urinate or being in a bed that is too warm, improved in all groups of people in the study, including the group that did not exercise.
The findings are important because lack of sleep or poor sleep quality has been found to increase the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and hardening of the arteries.
Lack of sleep is also linked to weight gain, diabetes and inflammation, which can increase the risk of stroke, heart attack or early death.