How Sleep Affects Your Weight
Our relationship with sleep changes with age: as a child, we fight sleep, and as adults, we embrace sleep. But one thing remains constant: sleep is a fundamental part of health. As you’re about to find out, sleep affects every part of our body – even your weight management.
Your relationship with sleep changes with age
You may think sleep is less important at certain stages of life. But nothing could be further from the truth. Large amounts of sleep are certainly imperative for growing infants and children. But sleep remains important throughout our lives.
As children, we avoided sleep. Naps and going to bed were dreaded moments of the day.
Then, as teenagers, we slowly warm up to the idea of sleep. Maybe you didn’t run from it as you did as a child, but you still often took it for granted. You probably viewed sleep as an activity reserved for the weekend.
Then college and your early 20s came along. Late-night study sessions often forced sleep to become a rare commodity. Sleep was the celebratory ending to the completion of a successful week of semester finals.
But now, your relationship with sleep is like an old friend you wish you could spend more time with. Oh, how you cherish the time you get to spend together. You hear your mother’s voice in your head as you lay your children down for nap time against their will: “I wish I could be the one taking a nap!”
I get it! We all live busy lives. And more than anything else, sleep is one of the first things to go during the especially busy seasons of life.
You’ll never hear someone deprived of sleep say, “I just wish I had spent more time Netflix binging last night.” No, because we know sleep is important, but I don’t think we realize just how important it truly is.
And that is why when life is crazy, it’s not our TV watching that suffers – it’s the number of hours spent sleeping each night that is cut.
According to Gallup data, in the past 75 years, Americans have begun sleeping 1.1 fewer hours of sleep each night. That may not seem like a big deal. But according to a 2015 study led by Professor Shahrad Taheri, MBBS, Ph.D., just 30 minutes of sleep debt each day can have a significant effect on obesity and insulin resistance.
How sleep affects your weight
Beyond the dark rims under your eyes sleep impacts our bodies in a variety of ways. Sure, a less than optimal night’s sleep will leave you tired and lethargic. But an often overlooked effect of sleep deprivation is the impact it has on our weight. And this doesn’t refer to late-night snacks. A lack of sleep affects your weight in ways you may not know.
Sleep affects what you eat: your dietary consumption
Do you remember the last time you stayed up late and began craving a kale salad? You probably don’t because sleep deprivation changes our food preferences – and not for the better.
Sleep impacts your cravings
A study conducted by Dr. Matthew Walker and his team of researchers published in 2013, showed that sleep-deprived subjects were much more likely to make unhealthy food choices and consume higher amounts of calories. Compared to the choices made while rested, the sleep-deprived subjects chose food that added up to 600 calories more than their usual choices. “There’s something that changes in our brain when we’re sleepy that’s irrespective of how much energy we need,” says Dr. Kenneth P. Wright, director of the sleep and chronobiology lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “The brain wants more even when the energy need has been fulfilled.”
Dr. Wright suspects the reason our brain’s response to food changes with sleep can be attributed to adenosine. Adenosine is a metabolic byproduct that disrupts neural function and promotes sleepiness as it accumulates in the brain. One of the ways that caffeine stimulates wakefulness is by blocking adenosine. Adenosine is also cleared from the system during sleep.
According to Dr. Walker, adenosine builds up and could start to degrade communication between networks in the brain without enough sleep. Getting sleep may be the equivalent of rebooting the brain.
In addition to adenosine, cortisol levels are dramatically affected by our amount of sleep. Cortisol is the stress hormone that is responsible for increasing your appetite. The brain’s cortisol levels increase with less amount of sleep. A large majority of adults respond to stress with overconsumption. Hormones that stimulate appetite increase, while hormones that blunt it drop. People become less sensitive to insulin, raising their risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Sleep affects what you do: your physical performance
Sleep deprivation negatively impacts your brain’s cognitive function. This manifests itself in slower reaction time, poor decision-making, and poor memory capability.
Sleep helps your body repair
Sleep is a time for your body to repair and restore. Each night’s rest allows your body to rejuvenate for the next day. It repairs itself from the previous day’s stress and prepares for the next day. “Sleep is important for pretty much every one of your physical systems,” says Janet Kennedy, Ph.D., the founder of NYC Sleep Doctor.
Sleep provides energy
In addition to repair, sleep provides the necessary energy and motivation to maintain an active, healthy lifestyle. After a short night’s rest, the last thing you typically want to do is work out. And the effects of that lack of sleep compound themselves when you try to make healthier food choices. Not only do our preferences change with a lack of sleep, but also the willpower to make healthier choices seems to decrease.
Whether you’re trying to shed some inches, maintain a healthy lifestyle, or somewhere in between, don’t neglect your sleep. It’s time we realize that sleep is one thing that should not be neglected. Maybe you need to revert back to an earlier stage in life and schedule some much-needed rest. Or maybe tonight you need to skip the primetime binge session and call it an early night.
Conclusion: get a healthy dose of quality sleep each night
Sleep is important. It’s a matter of quantity and quality. And if you need help improving your sleep, check out this article: 6 Habits for Better Sleep.