Not Sleeping Enough? Exercise Enough and Live to Tell About It

By Kevin Kolodziejski

If you’re not into bicycle racing, you could see the comment as cruel. At the time it was made, however, my singular cycling focus was to ascend the podium anytime I affixed a number to my jersey, so I took it as a compliment.

What’s the Story (of My) Morning Glory?

I was teaching language arts and when I knew grading papers or attending meetings would keep me in school until supper, I’d ride the wind trainer before leaving for the day. That meant I’d miss more than the pleasure and comfort nature provides while I’m pedaling along and willfully creating their opposites at predetermined intervals. It also meant I’d forfeit 90 minutes of sleep or more.

And during the six weeks of school following our winter vacation when my students would submit drafts of research papers, I’d stay at school until 5:00 p.m. most every night — and wake up before 4:00 a.m. most every day. The cumulative lack of sleep would cause me to doze off at times while assessing the research papers and made it almost impossible to read for enjoyment for any length of time after supper.

But you heard no complaints from me. Even though it didn’t make much sense to me at the time, the lack of sleep didn’t seem to be adversely affecting those early-morning workouts.

Once my cycling buddies got word that my intense weekday rides between New Year’s and Valentine’s ended before they started breakfast, though, what you did hear were wisecracks and one-liners. The one I liked best: That all that all-out riding early in the morning in the dead of winter would certainly lead to great racing results in the spring, as well as a really good turn out for a different sort of event in the fall.

My funeral.

While I had no clever comeback for my buddies back then, I have no fear of an early funeral now, thanks to 11 Chinese researchers.

Should You Fear an Early Funeral?

Their study published in the September 2022 issue of the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology shows not sleeping enough (defined in the study as less than 6 hours) does indeed lead to early funerals, well-attended or not. But the discovery comes with a King Kong-sized caveat: That it’s only true if you’re not exercising enough.

Two of the 11, Yannis Yan Liang and Hongliang Feng, analyzed data available through the UK Biobank on over 92,000 people (average age 62.4) who wore accelerometers for a week sometime between 2013 and 2015. Accelerometers can keep track of both sleep time and exercise time, which makes this study superior to many prior ones that relied on self-reporting by participants for that information. Liang and Feng divided the participants into thirds, first based on sleep duration and then exercise time. A follow-up about 7 years later revealed 3080 had passed away prematurely.

Sleep Skimpers Beware — or Exercise

It also revealed that those participants who had slept 6 hours or less a night during the week they wore the accelerometers were 250 percent more likely to be part of the dearly — and early — departed. Unless, that is, they had also met or exceeded the World Health Organization’s recommended amount of weekly moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

Then, according to Lou Schuler in a WebMD article about the study, the likelihood of an early death compared to those who had slept 6 to 8 hours per night was “virtually eliminate[d].” Following the more conservative writing style of the research world, the study’s author, Jihui Zhang, opted to call it “potentially diminished.” Either way, it’s important news for you if at times, or most times, you shortchange your shuteye and lose your desire to cycle because of it.

Everybody’s Standard Exercise Recommendation

Since the WHO’s weekly exercise recommendation is the same one that’s found in the current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and used by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control and the American Heart Association, it’s quite possible you already know it. In short: that each week adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity along with two days of muscle strengthening. What’s not possible for you to know though, since even the science world is less than sure, is why following that advice increases the lifespan of sleep skimpers when they are compared to other sleep skimpers who get less exercise or none at all.

The science world, however, is sure that exercise at any time of the day “fights inflammatory and metabolic dysregulations and abnormal sympathetic nervous system activity” Zhang tells Schuler. Both conditions can result from a lack of sleep and both have been linked to cardiovascular disease, as well as other potentially fatal conditions.

Time to Comment on Today’s Title

Which brings us back to another situation where you may be less than sure: how to do today’s title. How can you exercise enough to help your health while you’re hurting your health by not sleeping enough?

Schuler’s solution, to use the former to fix the latter, may strike you as an insufficient answer. But that could be his intention — if he believes as I do. That the research and the articles you read should not provide answers but the impetus for you to experiment intelligently.

While we all agree exercising when you’re feeling sapped from a lack of sleep — whether you do it on a bike or in a gym, after you wake up or before you go to bed — is certainly tough, the conclusion reached by the Chinese researchers should provide the incentive for you to experiment and find a way to do so. Because doing so does more than just add one more item to the list of exercise’s health benefits.

It works longterm to add years to your life.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.