In the Exercise article what I liked about the article kind
of goes along with what we were talking about in class as far as zoning in on
what the experimenters want when it comes to participants as well as focusing
on those who have problems with their sleeping habits as compared to those who
get adequate amounts of sleep every night. Also another thing that I found
interesting is that the experimenters choose to focus on those who are older
(55+ years old) rather than college aged participants whose day to day is more
stressful on average than a person in their upper 50’s (to a point). I like
this because these participants have a clear pattern of some sort of sleep disorder
that would be clearly impacted by a change in amount of physical activity performed
making this experiment pretty straight forward, theoretically.
What I didn’t really
like is that basically in the middle or close to the end of the experiment they
were thinking they needed to throw out “17 participant nights” because of technical
difficulties like a weak battery which is definitely something that should have
been checked prior to the start of the experiment, well given that the
participants were instructed to charge them which isn’t clearly stated in the Methods
section. But luckily they only had to eliminate one of the participants’ score.
This article, I
feel, is relatable to the general public in the sense that we all know someone
in the age range of the participants and will one day become this age whether
we like it or not and that is the time where physical activity is a must in
order to remain healthy physically and in order to gain the best amount of
sleep possible so that we are working with all our faculties. I definitely understand
what these people go through because almost every night I find myself waking up
around the same time once or twice in the middle of the night, tossing and
turning, I just seem to easily fall out of my deep sleep. And on the occasion where
I work out I do find it easier to fall asleep probably because I’m so tired I can’t
bear to move. But we all need exercise in our daily lives to keep us fit in
every aspect.
I definitely agree with you on the importance of studying the effects of exercise on sleep in older age groups. I also notice that I sleep better on days that I work out. Since I'm on the Club Ultimate Frisbee team, I definitely fall asleep sooner and stay asleep throughout the night on days that we have practice. I'm interested to know if exercise helps with other aspects (such as mental sharpness) as well as sleep patterns in older populations.
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts on the article!