**Episode Title: EP243: Is There a Best Time to Exercise?**
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:**
I believe we can prevent heart attacks. We can put in place strategies to reduce risk. We can literally plan to change your future. Welcome. My name is Dr. Warwick Bishop, and I'm a cardiologist, an author, a keynote speaker, and CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible, and that includes heart attacks, which impact Australia enormously. We're talking about a heart attack almost every 10 minutes and over 20 people per day dying from a heart attack in Australia. That's on a backdrop of over 9 million people globally being impacted. The sad truth is many of these could have been averted if only we knew what to do. Well, this podcast is all about that: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, general health, and driving health literacy. I'm on a mission to help not just prevent heart attacks but improve general health on a global scale. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honored if you could give it a five-star review and share it with your family and friends. It may even lead to saving someone you love.
**Dr. Eric Bishop:**
Hi, my name is Dr. Eric Bishop, and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. Thank you for joining me. Look, today's podcast is an interesting one—an article that came past me just recently, and, well, I thought I'd share it because I hope you find it interesting as well.
For as long as I can remember, I've been delighted if I can encourage people to exercise. Of course, any exercise is good exercise, and having a routine or a habit is a great way to make sure you fit that exercise in. Because if it's part of your routine, you'll likely follow through on it. Trying to do anything piecemeal often leads to frustration or disappointment because you haven't allocated the time.
Well, here's an interesting one. What if there was a difference in your results of exercise based on what time of the day you did your exercise? Well, it turns out that a research group actually looked at this. They were looking at an exercise intervention on a large number of patients. By sheer virtue of the volume of people they needed to look after, they had to split those individuals into two groups: a morning group and a night group. Quite serendipitously, quite by chance, they realized that there were different responses to exercise in the morning and later in the day as they collected data.
So they ran a 12-week running cardiovascular fitness and high-intensity training program. These were for fit, active people in their middle life ages. As I said, they had to split the group, and that was only by chance. But by doing so, they started to collect data. Very interestingly, on the same programs, what they found was that women who exercised in the morning were more likely to lose fat and build muscle than women who exercised later in the day. Now, this didn't mean that you wouldn't build muscle if you exercised later in the day, and the changes were only minor, but nonetheless, a very, very interesting observation.
Well, what do you say about men? Were men impacted as well? It seemed from their research that if men exercised in the morning or at night, they tended to lose about the same body fat and tended to gain about the same muscle. So it didn't make a great deal of difference in those parameters. However, the researchers clearly demonstrated that men who exercised in the evening had a better reduction in their blood pressure, a better reduction in their cholesterol as well, and overall reported less fatigue.
So there you go. If you're thinking about trying to time your exercise, you might think if you're a lady wanting to maximize your fat loss and muscle gain results, you might exercise in the morning. And if you're a male wanting to maximize your blood pressure response, cholesterol, and keep as energetic as possible, you might shift your exercise to the afternoon or early evening.
The researchers pointed out that one of the benefits of exercising at the same time each day is it helps regulate your circadian rhythm and therefore improves sleep. This is even magnified if you're able to incorporate sun exposure because that sun exposure will tie in with your melatonin, pineal gland, and melatonin, and again with your circadian rhythms to ensure better sleep quality.
So we've known for a good period of time that any exercise is good exercise. Doing it regularly is fantastic, and doing it in the sunshine and fresh air is preferable if at all possible. It certainly helps with sleep and overall general sense of well-being. But if you're a lady, you may well get more bang for your buck if you exercise in the morning. And if you're a man, you may get better blood pressure, cholesterol, and energy levels if you exercise in the evening.
I thought that was fascinating. It turns out I tend to do most of my own exercise later in the day, but that just happens to fit with the way work is, and it works for me. I hope you found that fascinating; I certainly did. If you have any queries or questions, drop us a note. If you've got any suggestions for future podcasts, again, let us know at info@drericbishop.online.
Again, thank you for joining me, and until next time, I wish you to live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now.
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