Yoga, tai chi, walking and jogging may be the best forms of exercise to improve sleep quality and ease insomnia, suggest a study published in the online journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine on July 15 (2025).
The findings back the use of exercise as a primary treatment strategy for poor sleep patterns, say the researchers.
Characterised by difficulties falling and staying asleep, and early morning awakening, the prevalence of insomnia ranges from 4-22%, note the researchers.
It is associated with heightened risks of various mental and physical health conditions, including dementia and heart disease.
Drug treatments for insomnia are not without their side effects, and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), while effective, isn’t always available due to the shortage of trained therapists, explain the researchers.
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An emerging body of research suggests that exercise is helpful, but current guidelines don’t specify which types of exercise might be most beneficial.
The researchers therefore set out to plug this knowledge gap.
They scoured research databases looking for relevant randomised clinical trials published up to April 2025 and included 22 in their final analysis.
The trials involved 13 different treatment approaches to ease insomnia, seven of which were exercise-based:
YogaTai chiWalking or joggingAerobic plus strength exerciseStrength training aloneAerobic exercise combined with therapy, andMixed aerobic exercises.
These programmes ranged from four up to 26 weeks in length.
The other approaches included:
CBTSleep hygieneAyurvedaAcupuncture/massageNothing, andExisting treatment, such as usual care and/or lifestyle changes.
The approaches were taken for durations ranging from six to 26 weeks.
The researchers analysed sleep quality, insomnia severity, subjective and objective measures of total sleep time, sleep efficiency (percentage of time spent asleep while in bed), number of awakenings after going to sleep, and time taken to fall asleep (sleep latency).
Compared with existing treatment, CBT is likely to result in a large increase in total sleep time based on subjective sleep diary data.
It may also improve sleep efficiency, and shorten the amount of time spent awake after falling asleep, as well as sleep latency, with sustained improvements, the findings suggest.
But some of the exercise-based interventions also seemed to be effective, when compared with existing treatment.
These included yoga, walking or jogging, and tai chi.
Yoga likely results in a large increase in total sleep time of nearly two hours and may improve sleep efficiency by nearly 15%.
It may also reduce the amount of time spent awake after falling asleep by nearly an hour, and shorten sleep latency by around half an hour.
Walking or jogging may result in a large reduction in insomnia severity of nearly 10 points.
Meanwhile, tai chi may reduce poor sleep quality scores by more than four points, increase total sleep time by more than 50 minutes, and reduce time spent awake after falling asleep by over half an hour.
It may also shorten sleep latency by around 25 minutes.
Further in-depth analyses revealed that tai chi performed significantly better on all subjectively and objectively assessed outcomes than existing treatments for up to two years.
There are potentially plausible biological explanations for the findings, say the researchers.
With its focus on body awareness, controlled breathing and attentional training, yoga may alter brain activity, thereby alleviating anxiety and depressive symptoms that often interfere with a good night’s sleep, they suggest.
Tai chi emphasises breath control and physical relaxation and has been shown to decrease sympathetic nervous system activity, dampening down hyperarousal, they add.
And its combination of meditative movement and mindfulness may promote emotional regulation, deactivate “mental chatter” and reduce anxiety.
It may also help to curb the production of inflammatory chemicals over longer periods, they suggest.
Walking or jogging may improve sleep by increasing energy expenditure, curbing cortisol production, improving emotional regulation, boosting secretion of the sleep hormone melatonin, and enhancing the amount of deep sleep, they continue.
The researchers conclude that their findings support the therapeutic potential of exercise-based activities in treating insomnia, suggesting that such activities may indeed serve as primary treatment options for this condition, rather than the limited supportive role they play now.
“Given the advantages of exercise modalities such as yoga, tai chi, and walking or jogging, including low cost, minimal side effects and high accessibility, these interventions are well-suited for integration into primary care and community health programmes,” they say.
They also suggest that further research could possibly help to pinpoint one type of exercise that is best suited to easing a particular symptom of insomnia.