In the authors' words
“Physical exercise improved subjective sleep quality (very low quality of evidence) and reduced insomnia severity (high quality of evidence).”
What was measured
- Sleep Reported an improvement
About the study
- Type
- Meta-analysis
- Who took part
- Midlife women, sedentary at entry
- How many
- 295
- Exercise
- Yoga, Tai chi and qigong, Resistance training, Other aerobic exercise
- Cited
- 17 times, per Europe PMC
- PubMed ID
- 35894372
How to read this. Each line is one study, summarised in plain language from its PubMed abstract, with the authors' own sentence underneath on the study page. A count of studies is not a verdict: trials differ in size, length and quality, and a result in one group of women may not hold in another. Nothing here is medical advice.
Summaries are generated, then checked by machine against the abstract they came from; any summary that could not be matched word for word was left out. Our clinical lead is reviewing the summaries topic by topic, and this note will change when that is done. Corpus last refreshed 2026-11-03. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix the summary or remove the study.
Similar studies
- A meta-analysis of randomized trials found yoga improved sleep quality in women overall, but four trials in peri or postmenopausal women showed no significant improvement.
- A meta-analysis of four trials totaling 660 middle-aged women found 12 to 16 weeks of programmed exercise improved sleep quality scores but did not significantly reduce insomnia severity.
- A meta-analysis of 11 trials found mind-body exercises like tai chi, yoga, and qigong improved bone density, sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and fatigue in peri- and postmenopausal women.
- A meta-analysis of 24 RCTs in menopausal women found yoga improved menopausal symptoms, sleep, anxiety, depression, BMI and blood pressure, but not hot flushes or quality of life.