Evening exercise and sleep: What new research says about working out before bed

Q: I’ve heard that I should avoid working out before bed, since it might make it harder to fall asleep. But right now, the only free time I have to exercise is in the evening. Should my treadmill really be off-limits after 7 pm?

A: Sleep guidelines have long advised against exercising in the hours before bed. But the latest research is more nuanced than previous recommendations suggest.

In recent years, several large studies have found that evening exercise is unlikely to disrupt your sleep, while others have continued to find a negative association in some contexts.

We asked sleep and exercise experts to break down the evidence on evening workouts and sleep, and share best practices for making a pre-bedtime workout work for you.

Moderate-intensity exercise is usually fine.

Research has consistently found that low- to moderate-intensity workouts in the hours before bed aren’t harmful for sleep, and may even help you sleep more soundly.

Going for an evening walk, easy jog or gentle bike ride — or doing any activity that doesn’t significantly raise your heart rate — can help to relieve stress and release feel-good hormones, said Dr Christopher Tanayan, a sports cardiologist at Northwell Health in New York.

Yoga and stretching can also promote mindfulness, he added, which may prime your body for rest.

Still, you can have too much of a good thing: Some evidence suggests that doing an extremely long moderate-intensity workout — say, a three-hour run — at night may make it harder to fall asleep, and may negatively affect your sleep quality, said Josh Leota, a sleep research scientist and lead author of a 2025 study that explored the connection between strenuous evening activity and sleep habits.

For high-intensity exercise, timing matters.

For strenuous workouts, the research is more mixed. Some studies have found that doing a high-intensity workout shortly before bed has little negative effect on sleep, but others suggest this can make it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Many experts theorise that the possible negative effects are due to physiological changes that happen during and after prolonged strenuous exercise. Most notably, vigorous exercise raises your core body temperature, often for hours after a workout ends. And the stress of the workout activates your sympathetic nervous system — often known as “fight or flight” — which releases stress hormones, Dr Tanayan said.

Both of these responses can interfere with your sleep cycle.

“If your core body temperature remains elevated, then it actually tells your body that it’s not yet time to sleep,” he added. While this is especially true for intense aerobic workouts, it can also happen with heavy lifting or any workout that continually strains your body.

“If exercise is too strenuous, even if it brings about really positive psychological benefits,” it may leave your body in a heightened state that isn’t conducive to sleep, Mr Leota said, adding, “So it’s a delicate balancing act.”

But the timing of high-intensity evening workouts can make a big difference.

If you crave a hard-charging workout in the evening and have some flexibility in your schedule, strive to hit the gym at least three hours before your bedtime, Mr Leota said. This buffer will give your body time to return to its resting state, experts said.

You may have to experiment to find the right evening routine.

If you’re only able to work out in the evening, exercising at night is better than not exercising at all, the experts said. They also note that everyone’s physiology and response to evening exercise is a little bit different.

Figuring out what’s best for you may involve trial and error, said Michael Gradisar, a clinical psychologist and co-author of a 2021 study on evening physical activity and sleep. Don’t just try a given evening workout regimen once before deciding whether it works for you, he added, but “repeat that experiment over and over again,” really paying attention to how you feel throughout the next day and week.

If you prefer to do strenuous workouts at night, the right routine might even mean choosing one or two nights a week to get a bit less sleep, for the sake of squeezing in high-intensity exercise, said Dr Matthew Badgett, a lifestyle and integrative medicine specialist at the Cleveland Clinic.

For some people, the choices they make around their workouts — such as where they exercise and how they fuel their activity — are what interfere with their sleep, said Jingyi Qian, a sleep scientist at Mass General Brigham.

No matter what type or intensity of exercise you choose, avoid working out in a brightly lit space close to your bedtime because this can delay your internal sleep clock, Ms Qian said. She also suggested avoiding caffeinated sports drinks and late meals, both of which can negatively affect sleep.

“Most importantly, don’t be discouraged from exercising if you can only do exercise in the evening,” Ms Qian said.

“With a little self-testing and good sleep habits, you can find a routine that supports both fitness and sleep.”

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