Don't Hit Snooze: ‘Sleep Coaching' Can Drastically Improve Fitness, According to New Study
You absolutely had to stay up for Westworld (OK, and then scroll through Instagram for an hour), but now you’re really feelin’ it at work. But the lack of sleep could actually be causing harm to your gym sesh, too.
A new study from luxury fitness brand Equinox, in partnership with researchers at UCLA, found that sleep coaching, which involves tiny changes in lifestyle habits in order to improve one’s overall sleep, could have a huge impact on how much you’re getting out of your workout, and in turn, your fitness goals. (And not the “fittin’ this whole HBO episode into your evening”–type goals.)
The clinical research, which is the first of its kind, included 32 participants in a 12-week sleep and fitness study. Researchers found that everything from small tweaks to not eating late at night to drinking less alcohol could help those participants sleep better, which in turn helped them work out longer and at higher intensities. Participants whose bedtime behaviors were closely monitored and then “coached” by sleep experts experienced a more than 17.2 percent reduction in body fat, versus 7.1 percent for the control group who didn’t receive any sleep coaching. Further, the sleep-coached group burned way more calories on average (nearly 30 percent metabolic threshold compared to 16.2 percent in the control group).
Moral of the story: Tiny changes to improve sleep can have huge effects on how much you’re getting out of that evening jog.
Now, off to bed for us. (And we’re finally all caught up on the Shogunworld episode, thank you very much.)
