SynthesisFrontiers in psychology2026
Time-of-day effects of acute and regular exercise on sleep quality and mood: a three-level meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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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.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Background: Evidence regarding whether exercise timing differentially affects sleep quality and mood remains inconsistent. This study examined the effects of acute and regular exercise performed at different times of day on sleep and mood. Methods: Eight English and Chinese databases were searched from inception to June 2026. Parallel and crossover randomized trials were synthesized using three-level meta-analysis with non-diagonal sampling variance-covariance matrices. Exercise vs. Control and direct Time vs. Time comparisons were analyzed separately, with CR2 cluster-robust inference used as a robustness check. Results: Thirteen studies contributed 81 effect sizes (40 sleep and 41 mood). For sleep, Exercise vs. Control showed a large effect in the conventional model (g = 0.86, 95% CI [0.26, 1.46], Conclusion: Exercise itself may be more important than its specific timing for sleep, whereas mood may show timing-related signals that remain insufficiently robust for definitive recommendations. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier [CRD420261431622].
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