A Single Night Of Sleep Restriction Increases Next-day Sedentary Time In Healthy Young Adults

Meeting sleep and physical activity guidelines while minimizing sedentary time have favorable impacts on health outcomes. Sleep restriction may impact subsequent physical behaviors, but the magnitude and duration of these effects remains uncertain. PURPOSE: To explore the effects of a single night of sleep restriction on subsequent physical behaviors (physical activity and sedentary time), in healthy young adults. METHODS: Eight (63%F, 20.3 ± 1.8 yrs) healthy young adults participated in a free-living, randomized counter-balanced study in which they were assigned a night of sleep restriction (SR, 3 hrs sleep) and a night of full sleep (FULL, 8 hrs sleep) during a 14-day period. Participants were asked to wear an ActiGraph GT9X accelerometer on the non-dominant wrist and sleep logs were used to isolate waking hours. Linear mixed effects regressions were used to examine the effect of sleep condition (SR vs FULL) on time spent in sedentary time (SED), Light (LPA) and Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA) on the subsequent three days following SR/FULL. Total wear time was included as a covariate in each model to account for additional wake time per SR. RESULTS: There was a significant interaction between sleep condition and days post-SR/FULL for SED only (p < 0.05). Time spent in SED was higher on the day following SR. Conversely, there was no significant effect of SR on time spent in LPA or MVPA, compared with FULL (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Sleep restriction had deleterious effects on sedentary time for the following day post-SR. Future studies should explore how timing of physical behaviors are affected by a night of sleep restriction (e.g., morning vs. afternoon behaviors) and the effects of chronic sleep restriction on physical behaviors.