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"The deep sleep phases are crucial"
Photo: LaylaBird / Getty Images
SPIEGEL:
Together with a colleague and two colleagues in Sweden, you examined almost 1,500 adults for six years using questionnaires to find out how sleep and physical activity are related.
What did you find out?
This text first appeared in July 2020.
Gerber:
The more active a person is, the less often they complain of insomnia.
To person
Icon: enlargePhoto: Alex Käslin
Markus Gerber
is a professor at the Department of Sport, Exercise and Health at the University of Basel and researches how physical exercise affects sleep quality.
SPIEGEL:
So exercise makes you tired - but haven't you already known that for a long time?
Gerber:
We were the first to take a closer look at it over a long period of time.
Regular physical activity apparently specifically promotes those deep sleep phases in which one processes the day emotionally.
These deep sleep phases are crucial and ensure that you feel well rested and relaxed in the morning.
SPIEGEL:
How can you be sure that it is movement that leads to more deep sleep?
Couldn't it be the other way around: people who simply have a healthy sleep by nature find it much easier to get up to exercise?
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