Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of aerobic exercise on sleep quality in age-related changes between young adults and middle-aged adults. Eight healthy young subjects (22.1±1.1 years old) and five healthy middle-aged subjects (45.2±4.6 years old) were recruited for this study. This present study examined body movements and self-reported sleep qualities with questionnaire for 2 weeks. Actigraph was set up on the right wrist to measure the body movements during sleep. During the first week, mean amount of body movement during sleep was calculated as standard body movement (Control). During the second week, subjects had high-intensive exercise (80% for young or 75% for middle-aged adults of maximum heart rate, HIE) and moderate-intensive exercise (65% for young or 60% for middle-aged adults of maximum heart rate, MIE) in the early evening of two days this week. Body movement during sleep of each exercise day was calculated. Results showed that body movement in HIE conditions was significantly decreased for young subjects (p<0.05) but the body movements in both HIE conditions and MIE conditions were not significantly decreased for middle-age subjects. Later, it was found that younger subjects improved in self-reported sleep quality slightly. However, middle-aged subjects did not improve in self-reported sleep quality at all. Also, seeing the results of objective %HRmax, it is difficult to decide the exercise intensity in middle-aged adults. Therefore, our study suggests that HIE aerobic exercises can improve sleep quality for young adults. Also, it is important for middle-age adults to conduct rating of perceived exertion or physical strength based exercise.
