Sleep quality and aerobic training among menopausal women--a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Menopause is associated with poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness, which may lead to impaired quality of life and impaired functioning in daily activities.

Objective: To study whether exercise training improves sleep quality or decreases the amount of night time hot flushes among menopausal women with vasomotor symptoms.

Study Design: A randomized controlled trial. Sedentary women (N=176) aged 43-63 years with menopausal symptoms were randomized to a six-month unsupervised aerobic training intervention (50 min 4 times per week) or a control group. Both groups attended lectures on physical activity and health once a month.

Main Outcome Measures: Sleep quality and the amount of hot flushes disturbing sleep. The women reported daily via mobile phone whether hot flushes had disturbed their sleep and how they had slept (scale 1-5). Responses received by mobile phone over the 6-month period totaled on average 125 (5.2 per week) responses per participant.

Results: At baseline there was no difference between the groups in the demographic variables. Sleep quality improved significantly more in the intervention group than in the control group (OR 1.02; 95% CI=1.0-1.05, p=0.043). The odds for sleep improvement were 2% per week in the intervention group and a decrease of 0.5% per week in the control group. The amount of hot flushes related to sleep diminished (p=0.004) by the end of the intervention.

Conclusions: Aerobic training for 6 months may improve sleep quality and reduce hot flushes among symptomatic menopausal women.