Physical exercise may be efficient in reducing clinical depression and depressive symptoms in the short-term among the aged suffering from depression or a high amount of depressive symptoms. More well controlled studies are needed.

Repeated measurements provide strong evidence for a substantial and sustained decrease in sleep disturbances following retirement. The possibility that the health and well-being of individuals are significantly worse when in employment than following retirement presents a great challenge to improve the quality of work life in Western societies in which the cost of the aging population can only be met through an increase in average retirement age.

ObjectivesWe examined temporal associations between objectively-measured physical activity (PA) during the day and in the evening, and sleep quantity and quality.Study DesignPA and sleep were measured by actigraphs for an average of one week in an epidemiological cohort study of 275 eight-year-old children.ResultsFor each one standard deviation (SD) unit of increased PA during the day, sleep duration was decreased by 0.30, sleep efficiency by 0.16, and sleep fragmentation increased by 0.08 SD units that night. For each one SD unit increase in sleep duration and efficiency the preceding night, PA the following day decreased by 0.09 and 0.16 SD units, respectively. When we contrasted days with a high amount of moderate to vigorous activity during the day or in the evening to days with a more sedentary profile, the results were essentially similar. However, moderate to vigorous PA in the evening shortened sleep latency.ConclusionsThe relationship between a higher level of PA and poorer sleep is bidirectional. These within-person findings challenge epidemiological findings showing that more active people report better sleep. Since only a few studies using objective measurements of both PA and sleep have been conducted in children, further studies are needed to confirm/refute these results.

High job strain is a risk factor for disability pension due to musculoskeletal diseases.