Weekend Warrior Physical Activity Pattern in Relation to Sleep Outcomes in United States Adults

This study aimed to evaluate associations between the Weekend Warrior (WW) physical-activity pattern and adverse sleep outcomes in adults.

Data were from adults ≥20 years in four NHANES cycles (2007-2014). Based on self-reported leisure-time MVPA, participants were classified as inactive, insufficiently active, WW, or regularly active (RA). Primary analyses were conducted in the complete-case sample (n = 16,036), and missing covariates were addressed in a multiple-imputation sensitivity analysis (n = 22,495). Survey-weighted logistic regression estimated associations of patterns with short and long sleep, sleep problems, and sleep disorders. Restricted cubic splines evaluated non-linear relations between weekly MVPA and sleep outcomes.

Compared with inactivity, the WW pattern was associated with lower odds of self-reported sleep problems (OR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.57-0.95), and also showed lower odds of sleep problems compared with RA (OR = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.60-0.97). The RA pattern was associated with lower odds of physician-diagnosed sleep disorders (OR = 0.72, 95% CI: 0.57-0.90) and short sleep (OR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.77-0.91) compared with inactivity. Multiple-imputation sensitivity analyses yielded broadly consistent findings for sleep problems and sleep disorders. In the overall sample, weekly MVPA showed significant non-linear associations with sleep problems and sleep disorders, with lower estimated odds observed at moderate-to-high MVPA volumes.

WW and RA patterns were both associated with more favorable sleep profiles than inactivity, suggesting that concentrated as well as regularly distributed activity may be compatible with better sleep health.