Technology and the increased competition in today’s world have made it difficult for us to get a sound sleep. There are a lot of factors that cause sleeplessness, but we can’t just avoid those things from our lives. However, we can figure out things that are hampering our sleep. We need not mention how sleep is important for us, especially when we are true to have weight loss.
Well, we guess we all know about it in some way or another, but here is a detailed picture of it. The following sections will make you understand how sleep is necessary if you want to lose a subsequent amount of weight. We will start by understanding what happens when we don’t sleep properly.
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How Improper Sleep Affects Us?
Here are the points that can help you in understanding how bad sleep can affect your weight loss.
It increases your appetite
The very first thing that poor sleep does to make your body gain weight increases your appetite. It is all about the hormones that are released when you are awake and while you are sleeping. So, there has been a lot of research conducted and it has been found that people who have poor sleep have increased their appetite somehow.
Ghrelin is the hormone that our body releases when our stomach is empty or we are hungry. Its levels are high when the hunger strikes to our brain, but as soon as we get the food, the level of it just lowers down. Another hormone important from this context is Leptin, which is released from our fat cells to suppress hunger and to signal the brain that we are full. So, when you don’t get proper sleep, Ghrelin is high and Leptin secretion is low. According to research people without proper sleep had 14.9% higher Ghrelin levels and 15.5% lower Leptin levels.
It may decrease your metabolism
We all know that metabolism plays a great role when it comes to losing weight. So, you will be surprised to know that inappropriate sleep can disturb your resting metabolism. The metabolism is highly affected by your age, sex life, weight, height, and muscle mass. The resting metabolic rate is known as RMR. So, research was conducted on 15 men, to know how sleep deprivation affects the RMR of the body. After 24 hours, it was seen that the RMR of all these men was low by 5%. After this, when they took a proper night’s rest and ate, their metabolism rate was 20% lower.
Apart from this, it has been seen that inappropriate sleep has caused muscle loss. Now, for those who don’t know, muscles burn more calories at rest than fat does. Muscle loss decreases the resting metabolism rate.
It may cause insulin resistance
We all know that insulin is one hormone that is responsible for separating the sugar from the blood and for using it as energy for the body. So, less sleep makes your body insulin resistant. Hence, more sugar remains in your bloodstream and the body produces more insulin to compensate. The excess of insulin makes you hungrier and tells your body to store more calories as fat.
According to a study, which was conducted on 11 men, only a few nights of improper sleep and it is enough to cause the cells to become insulin resistant. So, these men were allowed to sleep for just 4 hours to 6 days and their body’s ability to lower the sugar level was decreased by 40%, which is problematic.
It may lead to obesity and weight gain straightway
Body mass index is one of the most important points to consider whenever we talk about weight loss. It is the body mass index, which means that your body weight will depend on your height and other factors.
There is no denial to the fact that sleep requirement varies from person to person, but it has been seen that the body of people who are not taking a sleep of 6 hours behaves little strangely. According to a study, short sleeping hours increase the obesity rate by 89% in children and 55% in adults.
One more thing that you need to note here is that it goes the other way round too. If you are having any sleep disorder, then it will get worsened by weight gain. So, improper sleep leads to weight gain and it then makes it more difficult to better your sleep cycle.
It may compel you to make bad decisions
Well, you might be thinking about how our decisions are proportional to obesity or weight gain in any manner. Now, you need to know that when we are saying this, we mean the decisions that you make related to your food and diet. You need to note one thing that when you are sleep deprived, your brain just doesn’t function properly. You will lose self-control. More than that, the reward center that we have in our brain is more stimulated for food, especially when you are sleep deprived.
So, if you are deprived of sleep, you will find that bowl of ice cream more tempting and on top of it, you will not also have any self-control on yourself. Not just this, but a study has found that sleeplessness makes you crave more for food that is high on carbs, fat, and calories.
It increases your calorie intake
As we have mentioned in the previous point that the sleeplessness can end up to your craving for food that contains more calories and fat, it is obvious that your calorie intake will increase because of this. So, research was conducted on 12 men and they were allowed to sleep for four hours only. The next day it was seen that they consumed 559 calories more than they used to intake normally.
The increase in calories may be the reason for the increased appetite or poor food choices. However, one aspect of it is that you are awake for much longer hours and thus are available for eating more. It has been noticed that the biggest reason for this is the midnight snacks that we munch on and the food that we eat while watching television.
It can make you physically inactive
This has been found in research that improper sleep can make your daytime fatigue and can just demotivate for doing any type of exercise. Along with that, it can make you tired easily while you are doing any sort of physical exercise. A study conducted on 15 men, who were not allowed to sleep properly, says that the less sleeping hours can decrease the intensity of the physical activity that you do.
On the other hand, one more research that was conducted on some of the basketball players had a different result. These players were asked to sleep for 10 hours on the bed for five to seven weeks. So, after the trial weeks ended, they found that their performance just improved. It clearly says that good sleep can enhance your athletic performance.
So, these were the seven effects that you can have on your body system if you are not having proper sleep. We have also tried to explain the positive side of having proper sleep. Now, the question is how to get proper sleep. So, here we are with the answer to this question. In the following section, we are going to suggest a few tips that can help you in getting a sound sleep.
Tips & Tricks To Get A Better Sleep
Here are a few simple things that can help you in getting better sleep:
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As we have mentioned in the first line of this section, the biggest problem is the screens that we face daily in our life. So, the first thing that you need to do for sound sleep is to shut your computer, phone or TV at least an hour before you go to bed.
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Again, we have said it already that this is the world of competition and it is so important that we have bought our work to our bedrooms, which is just not right. Your bedroom should be a place to sleep. You need to think relaxation and release there, rather than work.
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You need to have a bedtime ritual. No matter how bad life is treating you, promise yourself that you will not tackle big issues there. To make yourself calm and relaxed, you could take a warm bath, meditate or can even read your favorite book.
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Discipline is a very important thing if you want to live a healthy life. Believe it or not, a disciplined person will find it easy to get good sleep. You need to stick to a schedule. The schedule is very simple. Wake up and go to the bed at the same time every day, even on weekends.
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It is a popular saying that we are what we eat, which means that eating habits affect a lot. You need to watch what and when are you eating. Eating heavy meals and alcohol when you are about to go to the bed may cause heartburn and can make it hard for you to fall asleep. Some other things that should be avoided before bed are soda, tea, coffee, and chocolate. It is suggested to take natural herbal pills that help you fall asleep. They are not addictive & are not habit forming. They contain naturally occurring substances like Ashwagandha, L-Theanine, Zinc, Magnesium. If you are interested in such herbal pills we do recommend reading our resurge review.
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You are advised to turn out the lights before you go to sleep. Darkness allows your body to release the natural sleep hormone melatonin. On the other hand, light suppresses it and doesn’t allow them to release.
How To Lose Weight While Sleeping?
After the tips and tricks that we suggested, here are some of the points that will tell you how to lose weight while sleeping.
By decreasing the exposure of blue light
It has been found that blue light suppresses melatonin, let the biorhythm go out of sync and also disturbs your sleep. Now, the question is, where do we get the exposure of blue light? Well, these days we get the exposure of blue light pretty everywhere. It is even found in sunlight, but there the wavelength of this light is not more. More than that, it is found in the digital screens. If you want weight loss while sleeping, you need to decrease the use of digital devices.
By getting light exposure early in the day
In the previous point, we said that light exposure is not so good for weight loss, but this sentence is not completely correct. When we said that, we meant that the light that you are facing at night might interfere with the melatonin production, not the daylight. If you are waking up early and are coming in the natural light, it can make your 24-hour circadian rhythms strong. It reinforces the natural decline of melatonin and when it happens you become more alert and active.
Go to bed early
Knowingly or unknowingly, late bedtimes have always been one of the factors for increased weight. This leads to late-night munching and the strong craving for food that is high in calories. This has been proved after a lot of research that going to bed late and gaining weight are just connected. So, we would suggest that if you are aiming for a weight loss, you will have to go early to bed.
So, these were a few of the things that can help you in losing weight even when you are sleeping. These are not the only ways in which you can lose weight and there are things as well. For example, one should sleep in a cooler environment or should sleep naked, if they want to lose weight even during their sleep. It is all about making the sleeping environment comfortable for you and your body. We are sure that we have made our points quite clear have convinced you that how good sleep is required if you want to lose weight.