Yoga beats other exercise for sleep
A new study finds regular yoga practice improves long‑term sleep quality more than other exercise types—boosting both sleep duration and sleep quality. That gives a strong evidence‑based reason to add breath‑linked movement to your nightly routine if sleep is a priority. (sciencealert.com)
A network meta‑analysis led by Li Li, Jing An, Dandan Wang and Hua Li was published July 11, 2025 in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms and pooled 30 randomized controlled trials with a total of 2,576 participants who had sleep disturbances. (link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41105-025-00596-7) The authors ranked exercise prescriptions using surface under the cumulative ranking curves and identified a specific combination—high‑intensity yoga, performed twice weekly for ≤30 minutes over 8–10 weeks—as the top‑ranked regimen for improving subjective sleep quality. (colab.ws/articles/10.1007%2Fs41105-025-00596-7) In the study’s comparative ordering, walking was the second‑best modality followed by resistance training and aerobic exercise, with traditional Chinese exercises such as tai chi and qi gong ranking lower in the network meta‑analysis. (sciencenews.org/article/best-exercise-improve-sleep-yoga) Researchers noted that meaningful improvements could appear within 8–10 weeks and reported the counterintuitive finding that shorter sessions (under 30 minutes) were associated with larger benefits than longer sessions in the pooled data. (sciencenews.org/article/best-exercise-improve-sleep-yoga) The paper’s authors and external commentators cautioned about heterogeneity across trials, inconsistent definitions of “yoga” and intensity, and urged higher‑quality RCTs to confirm the ranking, noting that earlier network reviews found different top modalities (for example, a 2024 Preventive Medicine review of 27 RCTs and 2,142 participants highlighted Pilates and other exercise effects). (colab.ws/articles/10.1007%2Fs41105-025-00596-7(sciencedirect.com))
