Hi there it's Matt again and it's lovely to be with you chatting with you.

In the last three episodes we spoke about if and how exercise enhances your sleep and then we spoke about whether the type, the intensity and the duration of exercise makes a difference.

However, beyond the if and the what type of exercise we finally need to discuss the when, which is to say does the timing of your sleep improvements or even in the evening

does that matter when it comes to sleep improvements or even sleep sleep harm, sleep damage.

That's what we'll focus on in this last, for now, I'm sure, episode all about

exercise and sleep.

And I'll begin by saying I was wrong. Well I'm wrong

about so many things but advice on exercise timing and sleep was one of those things I was wrong about.

If you'd asked me maybe, what, seven or eight years ago about sleep recommendations and

exercise timing I would have said that you should perhaps consider avoiding at

least mid to late evening exercise as it could harm your sleep.

At the time, the evidence was in short supply hence my annoying hedging vernacular that I would have

used in that prior sentence the the may the perhaps the consider the could and if you look back the original

recommendation that led me to suggest that came from work in insomnia and it was founded on very reasonable logic, which was the following.

If one exercises in the evening, there could be an increase in your core body temperature such that you would be too firmly

hot in terms of that core temperature which would injure your chances for good sleep.

And that was the worry, especially considering that we'd just made the discovery around the same time that people who struggle with sleep

typically suffer from a higher nighttime body temperature than good sleepers. But now when it comes to people who are healthy, normal

sleepers, in terms of evening exercise the evidence is quite the contrary and that data that evidence has

delightfully disabused me of my original stance. Indeed, it allows us to, mostly as I hedge once again, abandon the

myth of evening exercise being the arch enemy of good sleep.

And I'm sure that's music to the ears of you night owls out there who enjoy nothing more

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