Jul 30, 2026 · 7 min · 3 segments
Are you waking up feeling completely exhausted and wondering whether it’s better to prioritise sleep, and have a few more minutes in bed, or get up and exercise? Poor sleep, whether that be from one…
Lorna MarieHost
When you're sleep deprived, is it better to prioritise sleep or exercise? Now, this one's really case dependent.
So if you've had one night where you just had a rubbish night's sleep and you're choosing whether to lie in or to do the exercise, if it's just one night, I would probably just get up, get the exercise done and you'll feel so much better for doing it.
And I think this is one one thing that I wish more people would understand, actually, is that exercise gives us energy.
And particularly with our workouts as well, you know, being 20 minutes, quick 20 minutes, really effective.
And we pack in a lot into that 20 minutes and it just makes you feel so fantastic for the rest of the day and really helps to improve energy as well.
If you were chronically sleep deprived and you're really struggling with sleep, I'd be then wanting to dig a little bit deeper and find out what's going on.
So is it perimenopause? Is it stresses that are going on in your life right now? Is it the fact that you've got young children? So I'd be looking at why this is happening, why this has been going on.
And also, what have you done earlier on that week? say, say, I don't know, a Friday and you're chronically sleep deprived at the moment, you've been doing well with your exercise, you've been training, you know, you've trained three times this week so far and you're debating about whether to get up and do an early class, even though you've already trained three times and you could do that class later on the week, you could do it later on that day or you could do it on Saturday and Sunday, then it's Maybe try and claw back some of that sleep, perhaps.
But with sleep, we also have to really put it into context because it can be one of those things that is really largely out of our control.
For example, hormonally, if you're going through the perimenopause, there's only so much we can do sometimes to help our sleep.
But if we're going to get a cortisol spike in the middle of the night or hot flushes are spiking in the middle of the night, it can be really, really tricky.
You can feel really wide awake and it's the middle of the night and then the next day feel absolutely exhausted.
Therefore, I'd argue that getting into a regular routine where we're exercising, wherever that is in your day, maybe push it into the day if that's possible.
and getting into a regular routine where we're doing it at the same time every day for two or three weeks, I'd argue that actually then we'll be getting deeper sleep.
And then even if, you know, we're not getting all the hours, then we're getting deeper sleep and feel more restored from that.
And for some people doing the exercise in the evening can really disrupt their sleep.
When you're sleep deprived, is it better to prioritise sleep or exercise? Now, this one's really case dependent.
So if you've had one night where you just had a rubbish night's sleep and you're choosing whether to lie in or to do the exercise, if it's just one night, I would probably just get up, get the exercise done and you'll feel so much better for doing it.
And I think this is one one thing that I wish more people would understand, actually, is that exercise gives us energy.
And particularly with our workouts as well, you know, being 20 minutes, quick 20 minutes, really effective.
And we pack in a lot into that 20 minutes and it just makes you feel so fantastic for the rest of the day and really helps to improve energy as well.
If you were chronically sleep deprived and you're really struggling with sleep, I'd be then wanting to dig a little bit deeper and find out what's going on.
So is it perimenopause? Is it stresses that are going on in your life right now? Is it the fact that you've got young children? So I'd be looking at why this is happening, why this has been going on.
And also, what have you done earlier on that week? say, say, I don't know, a Friday and you're chronically sleep deprived at the moment, you've been doing well with your exercise, you've been training, you know, you've trained three times this week so far and you're debating about whether to get up and do an early class, even though you've already trained three times and you could do that class later on the week, you could do it later on that day or you could do it on Saturday and Sunday, then it's Maybe try and claw back some of that sleep, perhaps.
But with sleep, we also have to really put it into context because it can be one of those things that is really largely out of our control.
For example, hormonally, if you're going through the perimenopause, there's only so much we can do sometimes to help our sleep.
But if we're going to get a cortisol spike in the middle of the night or hot flushes are spiking in the middle of the night, it can be really, really tricky.
You can feel really wide awake and it's the middle of the night and then the next day feel absolutely exhausted.
Therefore, I'd argue that getting into a regular routine where we're exercising, wherever that is in your day, maybe push it into the day if that's possible.
and getting into a regular routine where we're doing it at the same time every day for two or three weeks, I'd argue that actually then we'll be getting deeper sleep.
And then even if, you know, we're not getting all the hours, then we're getting deeper sleep and feel more restored from that.
And for some people doing the exercise in the evening can really disrupt their sleep.
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