Introduction: Sleep is a physiological phenomenon, responsible for the maintenance of homeostasis of our organism. During aging, sleep undergoes a continuous process of change, both qualitative and quantitative in nature. One of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century is to guarantee the quality of life of an overall aging society. Exercise training is a widely recommended strategy for the management of sleep-related problems, but its optimal parameters are not yet known. Regular walking activity seems to hold some potential, while simultaneously being easily accessible to most of the adult population. Purpose: We wanted to determine the correlation between the amount of walking activity and sleep parameters in healthy adults based on a review of the literature. Methods: The literature search was completed in the PubMed database. Articles published between 2014 and 2024 were selected in which the authors investigated the correlation between the amount of walking and subjectively or objectively acquired sleep parameters. The quality of the studies was assessed using the PEDro scale. The studies were analysed regarding the study design and quality, sample characteristics, measuring tools and findings on the correlation between the amount of walking and sleep parameters. Results: Eight studies were included in the literature review, involving 2134 subjects. For measuring the amount of walking researchers mostly relied on pedometers for step counting. The most used sleep measuring tool was Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Regular walking activity seems to be correlated with improvements in sleep quality, REM latency and percentage of deep sleep, with shorter wake after sleep onset, lesser use of sleep medication and better daily functioning. Statistically significant (p < 0.05) correlation between the amount of walking and lesser occurrence of insomnia and risk for its development, was also discovered. Discussion and conclusion: Regular walking activity is correlated with an improvement in several sleep parameters; nevertheless, there are some differences within findings among studies. Further research is needed, including randomized controlled trials, unified walking programs and sleep measuring tools, to enable the design of general recommendations regarding the number of steps for best sleep outcome in a specific life period.
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