What’s the Best Time to Exercise?
Do you prefer to exercise in the morning? Or the evening? Or *gasp* do you exercise at all??? I’m sure you do. After all, you’re a loyal reader of my articles. Aren’t you?
This week’s question was about the optimal time to exercise.
As I’m sure you know by now (from my articles), the answer is almost never a simple time. There are certain things to take into account when considering the optimal time to exercise.
YOUR HORMONAL PROFILE AND CIRCADIAN RHYTHM
Ideally, your cortisol levels (that’s the stress hormone) are high in the morning, and lower in the evening. And if that’s you, it would make the ideal time to exercise 2–3 hours after you wake up.
But (and it’s a big “but”) if you have low cortisol in the morning, and high cortisol in the evening, it may be better to exercise later on in the day, like late afternoon. How do you know if you have this kind of cortisol rhythm? The best way is to test for it (you run a test called “salivary cortisol”), but here are some signs:
- If you’re not a “morning person”
- If you get lightheaded when going from lying to sitting or sitting to standing
- If you crave salt
