Sleep and weight loss, the one thing which may make the biggest difference to your health and requires the least amount of effort. Are you suffering from the following? An inability to lose weight, regular colds or flu’s, unmotivated, depressed, grumpy or regular cravings for high fat, high calorie foods, then getting more shut eye may be the solution.
SLEEP, is often the part of the day that we cut short. In the 21st century our lives are busier than ever. This means that everything gets shunted a little further through the 24 hours of each day. In the end we go to bed later and get less opportunity to reset and recover from the previous day.
It may be the one thing you aren’t doing which could help improve your health and help with weight loss. Our advice is to aim for a minimum of 7 hours each night, 8 is the ideal minimum. Getting more is not going to harm you, it is a strategy which is worth trying. What have you got to lose?
A lot of research has and is being carried out on the subject, but what we know already is the following.
1.Long term Sleep deprivation can lead to chronic diseases, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, obesity. It is also linked to mood and mental state as well as poor concentration.
2. It can also affect your weight in a negative way by playing around with your hormones and here is how. **
LEPTIN our fullness hormone – When we don’t have enough sleep, our LEPTIN levels drop so we feel less full.
CORTISOL, the stress hormone, normally this drops during the evening. If you are sleep deprived then these levels don’t drop as quickly and remain higher. Cortisol signals your body to conserve energy for your waking hours. It has been shown that your metabolism can drop by as much as 15%.
INSULIN – we become more insulin resistant. It means that excess glucose in the blood stream won’t be made available to the cells and end up being stored as body fat.
3. You are more likely to make poor food choices because you are likely to crave high fat, high calorie foods. Think about it as well, have you ever felt hungry whilst you are asleep. ***
4. Our motivation tends to be low and it is likely that our exercise and incidental activity drops as well.
5. In a study people who got 7 hours sleep or less where 3 times more likely to get cold infections than those who got 8 hours of sleep.
TIPS TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP?
- Regular exercise can help with sleep.
- Stay cool, make sure that you aren’t over heating in bed, or exercise at least 4 hours before you plan to go to bed. Cooling the body releases melatonin, which will make you drowse.
- Set a sleep time, simple maths here, what time are you going to get up, take of 8 hours and add a little bit more for getting ready for bed.
- Set a regular time to go to sleep and wake up, even on the weekends
- Avoid using your mobile phone or tablet before bed, reduce your blue light exposure.
Sleep is one of the habits we focus on in the reset stage of the MyMethod approach to resetting your health. Find out more about the My Method approach at a venue near you now!
* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30364557/
