People from all areas of the globe, especially in America, are sleeping less. This lack of sleep mentality has pervaded the American society and seems to be getting worse. While we may accomplish more tasks on our “to-do” list, we may be adding more pounds to our waistline as a result.
A person’s weight is affected by hormone production. Two hormones in particular are responsible for stimulating and controlling appetite. Ghrelin is the hormone responsible for stimulating your appetite while leptin tells your brain that your body is full and does not need any more food.
When you don’t sleep enough your ghrelin and leptin hormones are out of balance. They don’t function properly. Lack of sleep causes the levels of the ghrelin hormone to increase in your system. This causes you to feel hungry to a much greater extent.
Not only do you feel hungrier when you do not get enough sleep, it takes more to make you feel satiated because the amount of leptin in your system decreases. Also, research has shown that the more sleep deprived you are, the worse things are as far as weight gain is concerned.
Don’t think that your hormones have a great effect on the size of your pants? Think about this: there is a link between obesity and lack of sleep. This link is not a nice one. In fact, the link has been found to pair together obesity and lack of sleep in Americans. This link was found by Standford University and the University of Wisconsin.
One would surmise that when you are awake you burn more calories. While it is true that an increased level of physical activity will burn more calories, staying up longer won’t necessarily burn more calories. The reason is that when you stay up longer you tend to grab the nearest bag of pretzels, chips, and cookies to satisfy your undending hungry. More calories in means more pounds on your waistline. So you are better off sleeping.
Plus, it is also true that we burn 60-65% of all calories while our bodies are at rest. That means that only 35% or so of all the calories we burn are the result of physical activity. While there are certainly exceptions to this, the fact remains that being awake does not translate into rapid calorie burning.
There is a disastrous majority of overweight Americans today. Obliviously, current diet and exercise programs are not being followed currently. An easy way to help curb a burgeoning waistline is to focus on your sleep time. Try sleeping more to affect your ghrelina and leptin hormones positively. Get comfortable and get some sleep for a trimmer you!
It is very possible that the reason why so many of us fail with our New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight is because we continue to not get enough sleep night after night. If you are having trouble seeing results from your diet, ask yourself if you are getting enough sleep and find a way to get more. You will not only feel more refreshed, you may also feel slimmer in the process!