Healthy Habits: Enough Sleep

Sleep

Bad Habit: Staying up late, and never getting enough sleep.

Sleep is a reservoir of strength!

Strength of will!

Strength of character!

And increased energy!

One of my earlier posts was titled Beauty Sleep, so if you struggle with getting enough sleep at night, I recommend reading that post and the book that shares it's title.

“It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep and the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Ariz.

On average, we need about 7.5 hours of quality sleep per night, he says. “If you are getting this already, another half hour will not help you lose 10 pounds, but if you are a five-hour sleeper and start to sleep for seven hours a night, you will start dropping weight.”

Exactly how lack of sleep affects our ability to lose weight has a lot to do with our nightly hormones, explains Breus.

Three hormones are key in this process are ghrelin, leptin, and cortisol. “Ghrelin is the ‘go’ hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived, you have more ghrelin,” Breus says. “Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin.”

Sleep deprivation also raises cortisol levels in your blood, which makes your body hold onto it's fat reserves, and also makes you crave high fat, high sugar, and highly caffeinated foods.

“You are eating more, plus your metabolism is slower when you are sleep-deprived,” Breus says.

More ghrelin and more cortisol plus less leptin equals weight gain.

When I added a full night's sleep (7 1/2 hours for me) to my weight loss plan, I was amazed by the drop in my sweet cravings, by the amount of self-control I gained, and by how much happier I felt about everything in life. Sleep is a FANTASTIC weight loss tool.