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 “Light-intensity exercises such as stretching have not been
previously evaluated for its impact on menopausal and depressive
symptoms,” lead researcher Yuko Kai told Reuters Health by email.
Forty Japanese women, ages 40 to 61 years, participated in the study
at the Physical Fitness Research Institute, Meiji Yasuda Life
Foundation of Health and Welfare in Tokyo.
Twenty of the women were randomly assigned to stretch 10 minutes a
day before bedtime for three weeks. The other 20 were instructed to
remain sedentary before bed.
The research team evaluated the women’s menopausal symptoms using 10
questions about vasomotor symptoms (such as hot flashes and chills),
psychological symptoms (including mood and sleep disturbances) and
body aches.
They used a separate set of questions to evaluate symptoms of
depression.
At the start, the groups were generally similar. More than half the
participants were postmenopausal and nearly two-thirds had
depression. Most of the women were not physically active.
On average, the stretching group stretched about five days per week.
Overall, the women in the stretching group had improved scores on
both sets of questions after the three-week study period, compared
to the group that didn’t stretch before bed.
The frequency of hot flashes wasn’t different in the two groups,
however.
While stretching before bed isn’t a bad idea, Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton,
executive director of The North American Menopause Society, told
Reuters Health by email, “it is impossible to tell if the positive
effect found from stretching on menopausal and depressive symptoms
was due to the stretching, the increased movement, or not doing
whatever they normally do during the 10 minutes before bed such as
eat, smoke or drink, etc.”
Pinkerton said the results would have been more interesting if the
comparison group had been assigned a task to do before bedtime, to
see if it was the stretching itself that was helpful or just the
fact of doing something before bed.
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In most studies of methods for reducing hot flashes, the placebo
group sees some improvement, too, she pointed out. In this trial,
the comparison group had no improvement at all, which means, she
said, that it was not an adequate control group.
For more conclusive results, Pinkerton said, "this study needs to be
replicated with larger, more diverse postmenopausal women with an
active control group.”
In the meantime, she added, women should remember that “being
sedentary has been shown to be bad for (their) physical and mental
health and to increase hot flashes. Being active every day has been
shown to lessen severity of hot flashes, improve mood, coping
ability and may decrease (their) risk of cognitive loss."
Additionally, Pinkerton said, "if women were to exercise with light
walking 30 minutes daily and then stretch for 10 minutes, they might
improve health, menopausal symptoms, mood and cognition and, if
stretching helps sleep, improve their sleep quality.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/29dLbYQ Menopause, online June 13, 2016.
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