ArticleThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2023
The effect of physical activity on sleep disturbance in various populations: a scoping review of randomized clinical trials.
Article in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of physical activity on sleep disorders in pregnant people: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Pooled it
- Eating frequency, timing of meals, and sleep duration before and after a randomized controlled weight loss trial for breast cancer survivors.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Trial
- Exposome factors predict the association between sleep health and depression.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Association of Domain-Specific Physical Activity with Sleep Disorders in U.S. Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study Based on NHANES.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Physical activity, sleep pattern and problematic internet use in undergraduate health-sciences students of Nepal - A cross-sectional study.PLOS digital health · 2026Article
- Association between late afternoon and early evening physical activity and next-day depression and anxiety symptoms among workers in Japan: a two-week longitudinal study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Cleaning and pre-processing of actigraphy data for physical activity and sleep research: a scoping review.Physiological measurement · 2026Article
- Use of sensing technologies to assess sleep quality and physical activity levels in nursing home residents with dementia taking nightly psychotropic drugs for sleep disturbance: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in aging · 2026Article
- Bidirectional effects of physical activity and sleep on health: evidence and future directions.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Review
- Observational
- Personalized physical activity recommendations for people with axial spondyloarthritis using wearable activity tracker data: an exploratory study.Rheumatology international · 2025Article
- The mediating role of physical activity, morning wake-up time, and sleep-inducing medication use in the relationship between age and depression: a path analysis of a large kurdish cohort study in Iran.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The relationship between physical activity and sleep disorders in adolescents: a chain-mediated model of anxiety and mobile phone dependence.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Factors associated with physical activity in patients with upper gastrointestinal cancer during outpatient chemotherapy: A cross-sectional study.Asia-Pacific journal of oncology nursing · 2024Article
- The Relationship between Sleep and Physical Activity by Age, Race, and Gender.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2024Review
- The association of sedentary time with sleep disturbances among the US population, 2005 to 2014.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Anxiety, Sleep Problems, and Vigorous Physical Activity: Bidirectional Associations from Early Adolescence to Early Adulthood in Swedish Adolescents.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2024Article
- Actigraphy Estimated Sleep Moderates the Relationship between Physical Activity and Cognition in Older Adults.Mental health and physical activity · 2024Article
- Visual analysis of the research frontiers, hotspots and trends of exercise therapy intervention in tumor-related sleep-wake disorders.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- The effect of exercise on the risk of metabolic syndrome associated with sleep insufficiency: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPromoting physical activity (PA) in different populations experiencing sleep disturbance may increase population PA levels and improve sleep. This scoping review aimed to examine the effect of various PA intervention strategies on sleep across different populations, identify key sleep outcomes, and analyze knowledge gaps by mapping the relevant literature.
methodsFor this study, we systematically searched articles published till March 2022 from PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) regarding the effect of physical activity on sleep. Two authors extracted key data and descriptively analyzed the data. Thematic analysis was used to categorize the results into themes by all authors. Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework was used to present the findings.
resultsTwenty-one randomized controlled trials out of 3052 studies were finally included with 3677 participants (2852 females (78%)). Five trials were conducted in healthy working-age adults with sleep disturbance but without the diagnosis of insomnia, five in healthy older adults, two in perinatal women, four in patients with cancer, three in mental illness related subjects, and another two in other disease-related areas. PA interventions were diverse, including walking, resistance training, aerobic exercise, housework, water exercise, basketball, smartphone/tablet "apps", web, online videos or wearable actigraphy, and self-determined exercise. Three major themes were identified: (1) Sleep environment may be important to address prior to instituting PA interventions, (2) All types of PA were effective for improving sleep in all populations studied, (3) Self-tolerated PA is safe for improving sleep in the elderly and in co-morbid or perinatal populations.
conclusionsPA is effective and safe for improving sleep in both healthy and co-morbid populations with sleep disturbance by increasing daily activity levels using a variety of strategies, even low intensity, such as housekeeping, sit-to-stand repetitions, along with encouraging PA through web pages, videos, and self-goal setting apps. In addition, this scoping review identifies the need for further therapeutic research and future exploration in populations with sleep initiation or sleep maintenance disturbance.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.