Effects of different daytime exercises on the quality of sleep and appetite of obese women

Aims: The aim of this study was to determine the effects of daytime aerobic exercise on the subsequent sleep and appetite of obese women. Materials and Methods: It was a semi-experimental study with pre and post-test design. Fifteen obese women were asked to do aerobic exercises three sessions a week for 2 weeks, with each session lasting 60 min at 60% of maximum heart rate either at 9:00 am or 18:00 pm. A body composition analyzer (InBody-320, South Korea) was used to measure weight, fat percentage, and body mass index (BMI). Nocturnal sleep-wake schedule data and sleep patterns in the two conditions (morning vs. evening) were recorded at 1-min intervals and scored with the Actiwatch Sleep Analysis 8 software. Paired t-test and independent t-test were used to analyze the data. Results: Results (age, 46.9 +/- 5.2 years; BMI, 33.6 +/- 3.2 kg/m2; and percentage of body fat >= 35%) showed that sleep efficiency, wake bouts, actual sleep, and sleep latency were improved after exercise training (P <= 0.05). Furthermore, morning exercise condition resulted in a better improvement in sleep efficiency (73.41% +/- 6.94%), wake bouts (15.81% +/- 3.30%), and sleep latency (79.47% +/- 6.09%) compared to that of evening exercise (P <= 0.05). It was also reported that the perceived satiety was not significantly different in the two conditions (P = 0.94 and P = 0.076, respectively, for morning and evening), while the perceived hungry was improved significantly in the morning condition (P = 0.003). Conclusion: As a result, aerobic exercises at the time of the morning can lead to a better quality of sleep and decline in hungry of obese women compared to the evening exercise.