Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. Originally published on November 17, 2016.
Have you ever woken up from a night of poor sleep and felt the urge to eat everything in sight? It’s not your imagination; Sleep quality has repeatedly been shown to play a major role in what you eat the next day.
The link is so strong that if you’re trying to lose a few pounds, you should pay attention to your sleep, or lack thereof. Even if you exercise regularly and follow a healthy diet diligently (both are beneficial in their own right), sleep problems can derail your weight loss efforts. Here’s how.
A night of limited sleep can cause you to eat about 400 more calories.
When researchers reviewed data from 11 sleep studies involving more than 170 people, the results were clear. Limited sleep (typically about four hours a night) causes people to eat more than they would after a full night’s rest.1
On average, participants ate 385 more calories, including more fat and less protein, following a poor night’s sleep. It had no effect on the participants’ activity levels, meaning they had a “net positive energy balance,” which can lead to weight gain over time.
There are many theories as to why sleep deprivation makes you eat more, including increasing the “hunger hormone” ghrelin and decreasing the hormone leptin, which is involved in satiety. However, the authors of the study pointed out Insomnia It also increases your desire to seek food as a reward.2
A 2012 study found that limited sleep (four hours a night) increased activation of brain regions sensitive to food stimuli. There is also increased brain activity in reward-related areas, which explains why not getting enough sleep encourages your brain to overeat.3
Lack of sleep gives you the munchies
In most cases, even the energy of desire is not enough to overcome the insignificant effect of lack of sleep on your appetite, because sleep restriction is associated with your endocannabinoid system – the same one that is awake. Marijuana.
This system is involved in regulating appetite and food intake. One study compared the effects of four nights of regular sleep (8.5 hours) and four nights of limited sleep (4.5 hours) among 14 young adults.4
The endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG), a chemical that makes food palatable, increased when the participants were sleep deprived.5 On a typical day, your 2-AG levels are low overnight and then slowly rise until they peak in the afternoon. But in people who were sleep-deprived, the levels remained high until the night.
Similarly, the participants reported increased hunger and appetite when they got little sleep and were unable to suppress it. Consumption of junk food. Compared to when they were well rested, they ate a high-carb snack with almost double the amount of fat and protein.
Previous studies have similarly found that people who are chronically sleep deprived and sleep late tend to eat more during the day and at night and are more likely to gain weight.6
Poor sleep promotes insulin resistance.
Another descriptive study showed that one night of sleep deprivation caused a decrease in insulin sensitivity similar to that caused by eating a poor diet for six months.7 Josiah Broussard, project scientist at the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, said in a press release.8
“This study shows the importance of adequate sleep in maintaining blood sugar levels and reducing the risk of metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.”
By the way, insulin resistance not only causes weight gain, but also chronic diseases like cancer. This explains why men who have trouble sleeping are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as men who sleep well.9
Lack of adequate sleep contributes to breast cancer recurrence and more aggressive breast cancer in postmenopausal women.10 Sleeping less than six hours a night has been linked to an increased risk of colorectal adenomas, which can develop into cancer if left untreated.
People who sleep less than six hours a day are 50% more likely to be exposed than those who sleep seven hours or more.11 Another reason why sleep deprivation leads to cancer is related to this. MelatoninProduct disturbed by lack of sleep.
This is extremely problematic, because melatonin inhibits the proliferation of various types of cancer cells and triggers cancer cell apoptosis.
Even children gain weight due to lack of sleep
Addressing sleep problems is incredibly important because obesity and obesity are on the rise among children. Even relatively small changes in sleep habits, such as increasing or decreasing 1.5 hours of sleep per day, have an impact.
For example, in one study, 8- to 11-year-old children increased or decreased their time in bed by 1.5 hours for one week, then changed their schedule for another week. Significant benefits were reported, including when the children slept more, eating an average of 134 calories per day and losing about half a pound.12
In the year In 2011, researchers found that every additional hour of sleep between the ages of 3 and 5 reduced the risk of being overweight or obese by 61% at age 7.13 And significantly, weight gain is mainly due to increased fat mass.
In the year A separate 2013 study found that getting an extra hour of sleep a day was associated with a 28% lower risk of obesity and a 30% lower risk of obesity.14
What to do if you can’t get enough sleep – arrange light exposure
If you have trouble sleeping, keep a quick record of your light exposure. Do you spend the day indoors, mostly exposed to artificial light and at night in front of more artificial lights, including from your TV, computer or cell phone?
Adjusting these exposures to avoid exposure to bright natural light in the morning and blue light at night is critical to healthy sleep. In the morning, bright, blue light-rich sunlight signals to your body that it’s time to wake up. At night, when the sun goes down, the darkness should signal to your body that it’s time to sleep.
Ideally, get at least 10 to 15 minutes of natural light first thing in the morning to help your circadian system reset itself. This sends a strong message to your internal clock that the day has arrived, making it less likely to be confused by faint light signals later.
Then get another “dose” of sunlight for at least 30 minutes around noon. A full hour or more would be better. If your schedule requires you to get up and get to work before sunrise, plan to get at least half an hour. Bright sunlight Sometimes during the day.
Wear amber-colored glasses that block blue light in the evening as the sun begins to rise. Also, dim your lights and turn off electronic devices to reduce exposure to light, which disrupts melatonin production.
If you need light after sunset, switch to a low-wattage bulb that emits yellow, orange, or red light. A salt lamp lit by a 5-watt bulb is an ideal solution that won’t interfere with your melatonin production.
If you use a computer or smartphone at night, install blue light blocking software like f.lux, which changes the color temperature of your screen as the day goes on and slows down the blue wavelengths. However, as mentioned, the easiest solution is to save Blue-light blocking glasses So you don’t get exposure to blue light after sunset.
Precautions before diving in the sun
Sunlight exposure is the best way to optimize your circadian rhythm as well as vitamin D levels. However, there are some precautions to keep in mind, especially if you are eating a diet rich in linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 fat that is one of the most dangerous toxins in the Western world.
The thing about LA is that when it gets embedded in your skin and exposed to sunlight, it causes inflammation and DNA damage. To prevent this from happening, I strongly recommend avoiding high noon sun exposure as long as you eliminate all seed oils and processed foods from your diet for four to six months.
Over time, your body will get rid of LA, and you can continue to be exposed to sunlight at high noon. But in the interim, you should avoid strong sunlight in the middle of the day and sun exposure is better in the morning and in the afternoon (for a few minutes) only, the ultraviolet rays will cause less damage.
How many hours of sleep is enough?
If you are well rested and jump out of bed awake in the morning, you are getting enough sleep. If you are sluggish and suffer from daytime fatigue, you could probably use more. The exact number of hours an individual needs to sleep varies depending on age and health.
In the year In February 2016, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 1 in 3 American adults do not get enough sleep.15 In this case, “adequate” sleep is defined as seven or more hours per night, but many adults get closer to eight hours per night (and therefore sleep deprivation affects more than one in three adults).
If you’re not sure how long you sleep each night, a wearable fitness tracker can help keep track of yours. The actual time spent sleeping (Not your waking hours) You can adjust your schedule accordingly. If you need more sleep and have a wake-up time, you need to go to bed earlier.
In addition to adjusting your light exposure, proper “sleep hygiene” is important. Toward that end, I recommend reading my entire collection for more restful, restorative sleep. 33 healthy sleep guidelines For all the details.
