How To Run at Safely Night — And Its Potential Benefits

How you spend the majority of your day will play a big factor into how you feel leading up to your run. No matter if you’ve been standing, walking around, or sitting for most of the day, you’ll need to warm up before hitting the pavement, track or trail.

“I have a lot of patients who come in with overall stiffness, tightness and back pain because they spend eight to 12 hours a day on Zoom,” Natarajan said. All that to say, just because you’ve been awake all day doesn’t mean your body can just spring into gear for a nighttime run. For instance, you can experience muscle tightness from either standing or sitting during your work shift.

“You still need to be intentional about your warm-up,” Natarajan said.

Both Natarajan and Rose recommended engaging in a warm-up full of dynamic stretches. Dynamic stretches are movements performed to their full range of motion. These are movements you actively move through, rather than hold like you would a static stretch. They prep muscles, joints, and ligaments for the activity ahead. Rose likes lunges and side lunges, while Natarajan recommended doing a grapevine running drill to the left and right.

One downside to running at night is possible sleep disruption. Exercise increases your heart rate, as well as adrenaline, noradrenaline and endorphins, particularly during long or intense exercise. While endorphins, in particular, make you feel good, they can stimulate the brain and interfere with falling asleep.

“It may take longer to fall asleep because of higher endorphins that keep you alert,” Rose said. This is not true for everyone, though, so consider monitoring how evening exercise impacts your ability to wind down.

Nighttime exercise may also impact your sleep cycles. Most notably, a meta-analysis — found in a 2021 issue of Sleep Medicine Reviews — concluded that high-intensity exercise like tempo runs or speed workouts prior to bedtime decreased REM sleep, the most restorative stage of sleep, which leads to decreased sleep quality. During a sleep cycle, you move from stages 1 and 2 (light sleep) to stage 3 (deep sleep) and finally stage 4 (REM sleep). REM makes up about one-quarter of total sleep, and it’s also the stage of sleep where dreaming occurs.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, people who secure a full five or six sleep cycles — the equivalent of 7.5 to nine hours of sleep per night — are more likely to be refreshed and energized upon waking compared to those who get fewer hours of sleep.

Quality sleep is essential for exercise recovery, research shows, as inadequate sleep promotes inflammation that hinders muscle repair, muscle glycogen storage, and next-day cognitive performance (such as reaction times, judgment and decision making). Additional studies indicate sleep deprivation can negatively affect athletic performance as it impairs vital muscle recovery processes after a workout.

Of course, everyone responds to exercise differently — some folks may fall asleep very easily after a late-night run. Take note of how a nighttime run affects your ability to attain quality sleep. If there isn’t a discernible difference between your sleep hygiene post-run or post-recovery day, night running might be a match for you. But, be sure to scale back (or consult with a doctor) if you notice any changes.

If you notice you’re amped before bed, or don’t wake up as rested, try moving your run to earlier in the day, if possible. More importantly, if you’re experiencing sleep issues, talk to your health care provider to pinpoint a solution.

(Related: What You Need to Know About Alcohol and Sleep, According to Experts)