The National Sleep Foundation's 2013 Sleep in America poll showed that self-described exercisers report sleep that is twice as good as self-described non-exercisers; and that the more vigorous, the more beneficial. Although both groups slept the same amount, 6 hours and 51 minutes, the quality of sleep was vastly different. More than 2/3 of vigorous exercisers say that in the previous 2 weeks that they rarely or never had symptoms of insomnia that include having a difficult time falling asleep, awakening through the night or awakening early and not being able to fall back asleep.
The study also reported that spending less than 10 hours a day sitting was associated with better quality of sleep and better health.
Exercise is a well known antidepressant. Studies by James Blumethal published in Archives of Internal Medicine in 1999 compared Zoloft to a moderate exercise program and determined the effects as an antidepressant we identical but that after 6 months 38% of those on Zoloft had a recurrence of depression whereas the exercise group had only an 8% recurrence!
Further, in 2007 he published in the journal, Psychosomatic Medicine, he compared the effects of Zoloft to both placebo and exercise. Once again he found that Zoloft and exercise were equally effective but that placebo was not far behind!
