Morning exercise is the best

“Regardless of the total amount of physical activity, morning physical activity reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and shows the potential importance of timely exercise for the prevention of such diseases,” wrote Ghaly Elbalak from the Department of Geriatrics and Geriatrics at Leiden University. And co-authors of the study in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

For their investigation, the scientists used data from 86,657 Britons from the UK’s so-called Biobank, which monitored the health status of 502,490 participants in a long-term study accepted between 2006 and 2010.

clear pattern

During the observation period, a total of 2,911 subjects developed coronary heart disease. In addition, 796 strokes were recorded. The researchers compared this to people’s preferred time of day for physical activity.

The result, according to the Dutch experts: “A clear pattern could be seen for coronary heart disease, cerebral hemorrhage and strokes. Relatively high physical activity at night (from 12:00 am to 6:00 am) was associated with relatively higher risks. On the other hand, relatively high levels of of physical activity between the hours of 8am and 11am has lower risks.”

Sports at 9:00 am

If you take a closer look at the time curves shown in the scientific work, then physical activity around 9 am is optimal for preventing heart disease and all kinds of strokes. On the contrary, morning exercise around 5 am or 6 am seems to be the least effective in comparison. Afternoon, the risk oscillates around the mean between the largest of the variances.

In any case, when comparing physical activity in the morning with only physical activity in the middle of the day, exercising earlier led to a statistically significant reduction in heart risk by 16 percent. The risk of stroke decreased by 17 percent. The latter also represents a statistically significant difference. Results were independent of the intensity of physical activity.