Going to bed late at night could be having a negative impact on your physical performance as you complete your workouts the next day, according to the results of a recent study. If you find yourself burning the candle at both ends but are still pushing yourself to keep up with good workout habits, there may be a reason you're not getting the types of results you've been hoping to obtain.

This can be very frustrating when you're feeling very tired and yet you've still managed to keep up your motivation to head to that spin class first thing in the morning. It's true that keeping up your exercises every day is good for you, but if you're staying up until the wee hours of the morning, then your time won't be as well spent as it would have been if you'd hit the sack slightly earlier the night before.

That said, it's important to point out that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine's study has suggested that it's not a matter of the number of hours of sleep you're getting. It's actually a matter of when you go to bed. Regardless of whether you've received 8 solid hours of sleep, if you went to bed at 2am, workout habits, weight loss and even skin health improvements won't be as good as if you received those eight hours after going to bed at 11pm.

The researchers behind this study were from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. They examined the data of 96 healthy adults who were anywhere from 18 to 50 years old and who each receive an average of at least six and a half hours of sleep every night. The researchers tracked the duration and quality of sleep received by the subjects over a span of seven days. They used wrist monitors to collect that data, while the participants also recorded their food choices, caloric intake and workout habits.

What the researchers found was that the participants who went to bed later at night experienced poorer health effects, despite the fact that they were getting the same amount of sleep as their counterparts. The study found that the people who went to bed later were also inclined to eat fewer veggies and eat more fast foods than people who went to bed at an earlier hour. People who went to bed later also placed a lower priority on physical activity.