Sleep – we know it is one of the essential things that our bodies need to survive. Recharging your proverbial batteries is required every day. If we missed even one night of sleep we would find ourselves sluggish and tired for probably several days afterwards. And we all know the great feeling of a good night sleep and how it can affect our moods. Conversely, if you have a bad night sleep it can make your irritable, grouchy and unpleasant to be around. So for many people, sleep is a lovely thing that does wonders for them during the day.
And yet, despite our great attitude towards getting a good night sleep, it seems that many of us take it for granted in a sense. Certainly many people consider getting plenty of sleep to be at a premium – it is a luxury that is confined only to weekends and days off. But is this actually doing our health any good? It’s common knowledge that when people go to the doctor’s suffering with illnesses and conditions, getting more sleep is one of the most commonly prescribed treatments. Our modern lifestyles seem to have given us a chronic lack of sleep, which isn’t good for us.
But interestingly, it has now been revealed that sleeping more can even help you lose weight. And indeed, conversely, not getting enough sleep can lead to you putting on weight. A team of researchers at the Sleep Medicine Program at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City have said that the amount that you sleep and possibly even the quality of your sleep may work in tandem to affect the hormonal activity that causes changes in our appetites.
The researchers were able to discover that sleep and sleep disruption effect drastic changes in to the body – including possibly altering weight loss, and ultimately a person’s weight. This suggests very interesting things about how sleep could be changing our bodies in ways that we don’t currently understand. It is true that doctors have known for a long time that many hormones are affected by sleep, but it wasn’t until recently that appetite was noted to be a major part of this as well. What illuminated this was research on the hormones leptin and ghrelin.
The hormones leptin and ghrelin work in a system that seems to be able to control feelings of hunger and fullness. Ghrelin – which is produced by the body in the gastrointestinal tract – stimulates appetite, while leptin – which is created in fat cells – sends a signal to the brain when you are full. It seems that when we don’t get enough sleep ghrelin in stimulated in a way that means your appetite increased, while the levels of leptin mean that you’ll feel less sated by the food that you eat.
Clearly these two things working at once can lead you into a situation where you feel the need to eat more, because you appetite is high and when you do eat food you don’t feel any satisfaction from it. This is turn leads to serious problems regarding overeating. And understandably when we overeat we are likely to put on weight. This becomes a problem because if we are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, we will often find ourselves in a position that makes us more likely to overeat.
To counteract this it is recommended that you try to get plenty of sleep if you have found yourself gaining weight recently. It is likely that the lack of sleep is a big issue for you.
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