Research Study Abstract

The relations between sleep, time of physical activity, and time outdoors among adult women

  • Published on Sep 6, 2017

Physical activity and time spent outdoors may be important non-pharmacological approaches to improve sleep quality and duration (or sleep patterns) but there is little empirical research evaluating the two simultaneously. The current study assesses the role of physical activity and time outdoors in predicting sleep health by using objective measurement of the three variables. A convenience sample of 360 adult women (mean age = 55.38 ±9.89 years; mean body mass index = 27.74 ±6.12) was recruited from different regions of the U.S. Participants wore a Global Positioning System device and ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometers on the hip for 7 days and on the wrist for 7 days and 7 nights to assess total time and time of day spent outdoors, total minutes in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, and 4 measures of sleep health, respectively. A generalized mixed-effects model was used to assess temporal associations between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, outdoor time, and sleep at the daily level (days = 1931) within individuals. There was a significant interaction (p = 0.04) between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and time spent outdoors in predicting total sleep time but not for predicting sleep efficiency. Increasing time outdoors in the afternoon (versus morning) predicted lower sleep efficiency, but had no effect on total sleep time. Time spent outdoors and the time of day spent outdoors may be important moderators in assessing the relation between physical activity and sleep. More research is needed in larger populations using experimental designs.

Author(s)

  • Murray K 1,2
  • Godbole S 2
  • Natarajan L 2
  • Full K 2
  • Hipp JA 3,4,5
  • Glanz K 6
  • Mitchell J 7
  • Laden F 8,9
  • James P 10
  • Quante M 11,12
  • Kerr J 2

Institution(s)

  • 1

    School of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
  • 2

    Department of Family Medicine & Public Health, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.
  • 3

    Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
  • 4

    Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
  • 5

    Center for Human Health and the Environment, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
  • 6

    Perelman School of Medicine and School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
  • 7

    Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
  • 8

    Departments of Environmental Health and Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
  • 9

    Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
  • 10

    Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse (CoRAL), Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
  • 11

    Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
  • 12

    Department of Neonatology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.

Journal

Plos One

Categories

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