The Amount of Sleep You Get Affects Your Weight & Health

If you are someone who is struggling with your weight, then sleep is important to you.  Getting the right amount of sleep each night is really important since it can increase the benefits of  a healthy lifestyle, such as diet and exercise. Getting the right amount of sleep each night can also diminishing the impact of those genetic predisposed factors. 

 

Did you know that even if you are genetically predisposed to being overweight, sleeping at least nine (9) hours, or more, each night can have a dramatic benefit for you.

  

Numerous studies have shown that people who sleep less than seven (7) hours a night tend to be heavier than people who get the amount of sleep they need. The biological mechanisms linking sleep deprivation to weight gain are numerous.  When you don't get enough sleep. your leptin (the hormone that signals satiety) level falls and your ghrelin (which signals hunger) actually rises. Sleep deprivation tends to lead to food cravings, particularly for sweet and starchy foods. With the lack of sleep, a persons brain searches or craves carbohydrates, for fuel. This leads to poor eating habits which then causes weight gain.

It has been shown that lack of sleep decreases the sensitivity of your insulin receptors. Thus causes your insulin levels to rise. This impairs your body's ability to burn fat which causes weight gain and increases the risk of diabetes.

So, with the information above, the natural question is, how much sleep does a person need?  As a general rule, adults need six (6)  to (8) eight hours of sleep every night. Now this is just a general rule. Some people may need more than nine (9) hours of sleep each night, especially those that are genetically predisposed to being overweight.

Pay attention to your body and how you feel when you wake up. Pay attention to your mind as well and consider your emotional state. If you feel tired upon once you wake up, chances are you need to sleep longer. If you are one who yawns throughout the day, that is a sign that you need more sleep.

As you can see, sleeping is extremely important. With everyone being so busy these days, its often thought that we can skimp on sleep on the weekdays and make up for it on the weekends. Unfortunately this recipe is not successful. Your sleeping habits need to be consistent, so you should be getting the same amount of sleep each night.

If you would like more information on this subject, you can check out this article 'Sleep curbs influence of obesity genes', on cnn.com