The Importance of Sleep
Sleep is the foundation for everything—our physical and emotional health, fitness and well-being. It’s especially crucial when you’re trying to lose weight. While eating right and exercising are key to reaching your weight loss goals, many of us overlook the importance of adequate sleep—yet studies show that getting your ZZZs may be the most important factor. When you don’t get enough sleep, you can feel dazed, groggy and cranky. Worse yet, it can take a toll on your health and reduce—and even undo—the benefits of healthy diets and exercise.
Sleep and Blood Sugar
Research shows that there are many ways lack of sleep can affect your weight loss goals. A study conducted by the University of Chicago showed that just four days of sleep deprivation can slow down our metabolism by more than 30 percent. When we don’t get the proper amount of sleep, our body’s ability to utilize insulin properly gets disrupted. Your body can then become insulin resistant and cause fats to circulate in your blood and pump out more insulin, creating problems in your blood sugar levels.
Sleep and Hunger
In a study that was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, researchers found that lack of sleep may prompt us to eat more overall and make less healthy choices in what we consume. Participants who were deprived of sleep for a night showed an increase in activation of the part of the brain that regulates hunger, and therefore, an increase in appetite.
When we don’t get enough sleep, our body goes into a state of inflammation caused by hormones circulating in the body, such as leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is produced in your fat cells, and when you produce more, your stomach feels less full. Ghrelin is a hormone that actually stimulates hunger and decreases your metabolic rate, i.e. the number of calories you burn. These are two hormones that we do not want to stimulate!
Sleep and Exercise
Poor sleep affects your exercise performance, resulting in less calories and fat burned per session. It makes exercise feel more difficult and affects your motivation to work out at all. You might find yourself dreading getting up and hitting the snooze button. If you do make it to the starting line, you’ll most likely work out for a shorter duration and at a lesser intensity than you would if you were well-rested. With less sleep, your body won’t have time to recover, which will cause your fitness to plateau at best, and at worst, spiral downward.
As you can see, there are many ways that sleep affects your weight and overall health. Make a commitment to get adequate sleep every night so that you can improve your health and reach your weight loss goals. Read our recent blog post, 5 Tips for Better Sleep, for ways to improve your slumber and optimize your health and wellness.
