Best Time of the Day to Exercise

Handy Hints

• Physical and mental work-outs like yoga, meditation and other exercises are best to start at four in the morning

• Morning exercise improves our mental faculties

• Warm up exercises are essential to avoid injury of the cold and stiff muscles, especially in the winter mornings

• It is advisable to eat less or no food before your workouts

As said by Matthew Edlund, M.D., director of the Center for Circadian Medicine in Sarasota, FL, and author of The Body Clock Advantage, “Everything in nature works on a rhythm that is defined by time — hours, days, nights, weeks, seasons, years, and more.” So, in a way, we should bind a time for our daily exercises too.

Generally, morning is said to be the best time of day to exercise, meditate and to do other yogic exercises. Here are the reasons why that is so:

1. Less Disruptions
Morning time is the one with lesser distraction. It is a peaceful and joyful time that allows better concentration and thus gives enhanced results.

2. Energy Boost
The freshness of the morning boosts our energy level. It helps in better attention and one can be more alert at this time. A morning workout leaves you feeling more energetic and fresh for the rest of the day.

3. Cleaner Environment
Air pollution is generally at its lowest during the wee hours of the morning, making the environment relatively cleaner.

4. Freshness of Body and Mind
Our brain is at its best during this part of the day as it is preceded by hours of healthy night sleep. This freshness of body as well as mind helps us concentrate better on our workouts.

5. Insulin Level
To keep a stable insulin level, we should have little or no food before physical exercise; something that is more possible in the morning than at any other time. During other times of the day, we probably would have consumed breakfast or lunch, boosting our insulin level.

6. Metabolic Rate
Early morning exercise increases the heart rate as well as the metabolic rate. This helps to burn our calories early in the day, making us feel light and fresh.

7. Natural Time-Table
The body creates its own timetable. We sleep during the night and get up and work during the day. The same way, we should also maintain a fixed time-table and follow it regularly. Working out after a good night sleep will always give you better results.

8. Easy to Schedule
In this fast moving mobile age, once we start our daily chores, we rarely have the time to exercise later in the day or evening. So, if we spare sometime in the morning, commitments and schedule interruptions wouldn’t be a problem. You can do this merely by getting up early in the morning and starting your day with some good exercises.

For the late risers, getting up early in the morning in the initial days can prove to be the most difficult task to accomplish. But once start your regular training sessions, you will sure get into the routine of it all. All it needs is some doing.