YOU MIGHT BELIEVE that there’s nothing you can do after a trash night of sleep except to pound caffeine. But a new study reveals a surprising alternative that might just work even better.
A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the next best temporary solution is to exercise. Now if you’re sluggishly running on fumes, adding in a workout can sound borderline torturous. But stay with us for a sec: Only 20 minutes of exercise is enough to give your brain the same boost as a 90-minute nap. Bonus: The workout doesn’t even have to be hard.
What Did the Study Find?
THE RESEARCHERS REALLY went all-in on creating the most sleep-deprived brains. Fifty-four young adults stayed up for 30 hours straight in a lab before being split up into three groups.
The first group spent 20 minutes doing moderate-to-vigorous cycling, another group took a 90-minute nap, and the last group sat on a stationary bike for 20 minutes without pedaling.
After completing their respective task, each person underwent what they would later come to find was a memory recall test. They were shown a set of images with no instructions. Three days later, researchers called them back to the lab and asked them to point out the images they could recognize.
People in the nap group and the exercise group remembered significantly more images than those who just sat on the bike, with recall that was nearly identical (23 percent for the nap group; 21 percent for the exercisers).
What Happens in the Brain When You Don’t Sleep
NOT GETTING SUFFICIENT sleep disrupts many brain circuits down to the cellular level, says Beth Malow, MD, chief of the Division of Sleep Disorders at Vanderbilt Health. Because sleep is the prime time when the brain encodes and stores memories for long-term storage, you really see disruptions in the hippocampus. This brain area is important for learning, memory, and spatial awareness. So when you don’t get the restorative sleep you need, these skills naturally fall by the wayside.
“Restricted sleep impacts that process in very meaningful ways,” says W. Christopher Winter, MD, sleep medicine researcher and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It. “It’s why you should never pull an all-nighter before an art history test.”
Why 20 Minutes of Exercise Can Keep You From Being a Walking Zombie
THIS ISN’T THE first time exercise has been linked to better memory after a rough night of sleep. A small 2023 study found that people who had been partially or fully sleep-deprived performed better on cognitive tests after moderate-intensity cycling. The sweet spot was, you guessed it, 20 minutes.
So is exercise fixing the brain disruptions caused by a lack of sleep? Well, not exactly.
When researchers recorded the brain activity of sleep-deprived folk, they saw some interesting findings. Through EEG, people in the nap group showed signs of less fatigue and sleep pressure (the urge to fall asleep). This was closely linked to how well they remembered the images afterward. People in the exercise group didn’t show these brain changes. That would suggest their workout didn’t make them feel less tired—but it boosted their brainpower in a different way.
Exercise increases the amount of oxygen that goes to your brain, including the frontal area and cortex, which is involved in thinking and processing, says Praveen Rudraraju, MD, director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northwell’s Northern Westchester Hospital. It also increases levels of serotonin, a chemical messenger that carries messages between nerve cells.
“When you don’t sleep well, serotonin is dysregulated,” says Dr. Rudraraju. “When you exercise, it brings the levels back up.”
The Step-by-Step Guide to Navigating the Day After a Bad Night of Sleep
IN A PERFECT world, you’d simply roll over and go back to sleep. “The only true fix for a bad night’s sleep is more sleep,” says Cynthia Odogwu, MD, family medicine physician at Kambili Health. But sometimes that’s just not possible.
Like the study reports, squeezing in a quick workout can be helpful. While the people in the study completed moderate-to-vigorous exercise, Dr. Rudraraju says simply biking to work that day counts. Once you’re parked in, grab yourself a cup of coffee (or three) to keep you soldiering on. Just try to cut yourself off around noon-ish to avoid interfering with your sleep the next night.
Ideally, you would find time midday to squeeze in a short power nap. “Even 10 minutes can make a big difference,” says Dr. Malow. But if not possible, hydrate and try to move again, like a 20-minute power walk at lunch.
Above all, try not to kick yourself if a bad night of sleep is a rarity for you. Dr. Winter says it best: “One night of difficult sleep is not worth the worry.”
Korin Miller is a seasoned freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Everyday Health, Food & Wine, and more. She has a master’s degree from American University and lives by the beach.
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