The association between sleep and physical activity in hypertensive individuals

Abstract

Physical activity and sleep are fundamental factors for health and quality of life for humans. Being physically active decreases the risk for several chronic conditions and getting sufficient sleep can positively impact. Nonetheless, sleep has often been neglected in the society nowadays and sleep disturbances have increased. The lack of sleep is a risk factor for development of hypertension which is the most common but preventable risk factor associated with mortality. Patients with hypertension generally have poorer sleeping patterns that can cause other health problems. Physical activity is considered a non-pharmacological treatment for sleep disturbances and it could help improve poor sleeping habits in hypertensive patients. The aim of the study was to investigate the association between sleep and physical activity in hypertensive individuals. This study used a cross-sectional design. The participants were 45 hypertensive individuals (51.5 ± 8.8 years) with average blood pressure of 135/14 mmHg. Portable polysomnography device SOMNO HD™ was used to record objective sleep and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire was used to assess subjective sleep quality. Acute physical activity was recorded with Firstbeat Bodyguard 2 device and regular physical activity was determined based on the questionnaire. Cardiorespiratory fitness was tested on the treadmill according to the USAFSAM protocol. The data were analysed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 21 – software. Shapiro-Wilk test, one-way ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis test were used as the analysing methods. The effect size were calculated with partial eta squared ( and partial epsilon squared (). Participants were split into 3 groups based on their regular physical activity level, acute physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness. There were no statistically significant differences between any of the groups in objective or subjective sleep parameters. The main finding of the study was that physical activity is not associated with sleep patterns in hypertensive individuals. These findings are not in accordance with current literature, however, the effects of physical activity on sleep is small in most studies. Association between physical activity and sleep requires more randomized controlled trials with exercise interventions in this clinical population.