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      Is exercise an alternative treatment for chronic insomnia?

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          Abstract

          The purposes of this systematic/critical review are: 1) to identify studies on the effects of exercise on chronic insomnia and sleep complaints in middle-aged and older adults and to compare the results of exercise with those obtained with hypnotic medications and 2) to discuss potential mechanisms by which exercise could promote sleep in insomniac patients. We identified studies from 1983 through 2011 using MEDLINE, SCOPUS and Web of Science. For systematic analyses, only studies assessing the chronic effects of exercise on sleep in people with sleep complaints or chronic insomnia were considered. We used the following keywords when searching for articles: insomnia, sleep, sleep complaints, exercise and physical activity. For a critical review, studies were selected on the effects of exercise and possible mechanisms that may explain the effects of exercise on insomnia. We identified five studies that met our inclusion criteria for systematic review. Exercise training is effective at decreasing sleep complaints and insomnia. Aerobic exercise has been more extensively studied, and its effects are similar to those observed after hypnotic medication use. Mechanisms are proposed to explain the effects of exercise on insomnia. There is additional documented evidence on the antidepressant and anti-anxiety effects of exercise. Exercise is effective to decrease sleep complaints and to treat chronic insomnia. Exercise presented similar results when compared with hypnotics; however, prospective studies comparing the effects of exercise with medical and non-medical treatments are warranted before including exercise as a first-line treatment for chronic insomnia are necessary.

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          Exercise and sleep.

          This paper reviews the literature on the association between exercise and sleep. The epidemiological and experimental evidence for whether or not acute and chronic exercise promote sleep is discussed, as well as moderating factors and agendas for future directions of study. The expectation that exercise will benefit sleep can partly be attributed to traditional hypotheses that sleep serves energy conservation, body restoration or thermoregulatory functions, all of which have guided much of the research in this field. Exercise is a complex activity that can be beneficial to general well-being but may also stress the body. Differences in the exercise protocols studied (e.g. aerobic or anaerobic, intensity, duration) and interactions between individual characteristics (e.g. fitness, age and gender) cloud the current experimental evidence supporting a sleep-enhancing effect of exercise. In addition, the tendency to study changes in small groups of good sleepers may also underestimate the efficacy of exercise for promoting sleep. Athough only moderate effect sizes have been noted, meta-analytical techniques have shown that exercise increased total sleep time and delayed REM sleep onset (10 min), increased slow-wave sleep (SWS) and reduced REM sleep (2-5 min). The sleep-promoting efficacy of exercise in normal and clinical populations has yet to be established empirically.
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            How (and why) the immune system makes us sleep.

            Good sleep is necessary for physical and mental health. For example, sleep loss impairs immune function, and sleep is altered during infection. Immune signalling molecules are present in the healthy brain, where they interact with neurochemical systems to contribute to the regulation of normal sleep. Animal studies have shown that interactions between immune signalling molecules (such as the cytokine interleukin 1) and brain neurochemical systems (such as the serotonin system) are amplified during infection, indicating that these interactions might underlie the changes in sleep that occur during infection. Why should the immune system cause us to sleep differently when we are sick? We propose that the alterations in sleep architecture during infection are exquisitely tailored to support the generation of fever, which in turn imparts survival value.
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              Nonpharmacological interventions for insomnia: a meta-analysis of treatment efficacy.

              Because of the role of psychological factors in insomnia, the shortcomings of hypnotic medications, and patients' greater acceptance of nonpharmacological treatments for insomnia, the authors conducted a meta-analysis to examine the efficacy and durability of psychological treatments for the clinical management of chronic insomnia. A total of 59 treatment outcome studies, involving 2,102 patients, were selected for review on the basis of the following criteria: 1) the primary target problem was sleep-onset, maintenance, or mixed insomnia, 2) the treatment was nonpharmacological, 3) the study used a group design, and 4) the outcome measures included sleep-onset latency, time awake after sleep onset, number of nighttime awakenings, or total sleep time. Psychological interventions, averaging 5.0 hours of therapy time, produced reliable changes in two of the four sleep measures examined. The average effect sizes (i.e., z scores) were 0.88 for sleep latency and 0.65 for time awake after sleep onset. These results indicate that patients with insomnia were better off after treatment than 81% and 74% of untreated control subjects in terms of sleep induction and sleep maintenance, respectively. Stimulus control and sleep restriction were the most effective single therapy procedures, whereas sleep hygiene education was not effective when used alone. Clinical improvements seen at treatment completion were well maintained at follow-ups averaging 6 months in duration. The findings indicate that nonpharmacological interventions produce reliable and durable changes in the sleep patterns of patients with chronic insomnia.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Clinics (Sao Paulo)
                Clinics (Sao Paulo)
                Clinics
                Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo
                1807-5932
                1980-5322
                June 2012
                : 67
                : 6
                : 653-659
                Affiliations
                [I ]Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Departamento de Psicobiologia, São Paulo/SP, Brazil.
                [II ]Universidade Federal de Goiás, Campus Jataí, Curso de Educação Física, Goiás/GO, Brazil.
                Author notes

                All the authors are responsible for the content of the manuscript, having revised and approved its final version. Passos GS, Santana MG and Mello MT had the original idea, selected the studies and wrote the manuscript. Tufik S and Poyares DL selected and supervised the papers.

                E-mail: tmello@ 123456demello.net.br Tel.: 55 11 5572-0177
                Article
                cln_67p653
                10.6061/clinics/2012(06)17
                3370319
                22760906
                0c476a20-5a62-4e67-bd27-98be2cf75073
                Copyright © 2012 Hospital das Clínicas da FMUSP

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 18 November 2011
                : 28 December 2011
                : 13 February 2012
                Page count
                Pages: 7
                Categories
                Review

                Medicine
                physical activity,exercise,insomnia,sleep complaints,sleep
                Medicine
                physical activity, exercise, insomnia, sleep complaints, sleep

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