Table 1 Five RCTs investigated the effect of PA on sleep in healthy working-aged adults
Authors (year) | Design | Participants | Country | Intervention duration | Intervention and measures | Outcome measures (Sleep related) | Main findings (sleep-related) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bisson et al. (2019) [52] | RP | 59 healthy adults 72%female 49.43(± 8.40) years old | USA | 4 weeks | Increasing participants’ daily steps,2000 steps Actigraphy with Fitbit Zip | Self-reports of sleep quality and duration PSQI | Daily active minutes were positively related to sleep quality (p < 0.05), but not duration, in women than men More active than average, they reported better sleep quality and duration in both genders |
Murawski et al. (2019) [53] | RP | 160 adults, 80% female 18 − 55 years old reported being insufficiently physically active (< 90 min/week), and poor sleep quality | Australia | 12 weeks | The Balanced app, which provided a platform for personalized goal setting, daily logging with dynamic feedback, Active Australia Questionnaire | PSQI, Sleep Hygiene Index, Sleep Timing Questionnaire, Insomnia Severity Index, Epworth Sleepi- ness Scale | The intervention group reported better overall sleep quality (P = 0.009), subjective sleep quality (P = 0.017), sleep onset latency (P = 0.013), waketime variability (P = 0.018), sleep hygiene (P = 0.027), insomnia severity (P = 0.002) |
McDonough et al. (2021) [54] | RP | 64 young adults 75% female 22.8 ± 3.4 years old | America | 12 weeks | Weekly aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activity videos, ActiGraph accelerometers | ActiGraph accelerometers | YouTube-delivered PA intervention may help foster clinically meaningful improvements in young adults’ free-living moderate-to-vigorous PA, muscle-strengthening PA frequency, sleep efficiency, (F(1, 62) = 10.75–77.67, p < 0.001–0.002,ηp2 = 0.15–0.56) |
Rayward et al. (2020) [55] | RP | 275 middle-aged adults 82.9% female 40–65 years old who report physical inactivity and poor sleep quality | Australia | 3 months | Smartphone/tablet “app” to aid goal setting and self-monitoring physical activity and/or sleep hygiene behaviors, Pedometer | PSQI | No differences in sleep quality between Physical Activity and Sleep Health group and Sleep Health Only group |
Chee et al. (2019) [44] | RP | 26 Asian American (Chinese or Korean) midlife women aged 40 to 60 years | America | 3 months | Web-based physical activity promotion programs( WPAPP), The Physical Activity Assessment Inventory (PAAI) | The Sleep Index for Midlife Women (SIMW) | The WPAPP is potentially beneficial in decreasing Asian American midlife women’s sleep-related symptoms The intervention group showed a trend of decrease in the total numbers of psychological (P = 0.0956) and total sleep-related symptoms (P = 0.0733) |