Do you think it would make a difference if you could get an extra hour?
We all know how important sleep is and how it effects our day if we don’t get enough. Not only does it play a huge role in brain function learning and retaining information sleep also is massive when we are trying to lose the extra weight, and is usually the key behind some people’s fitness journeys.
Getting at least 7 hours of sleep a night will prevent the hormone ghrelin to go up. This hormone makes you feel hungry ( if you’ve heard of the term “eating when I’m bored” this is usually the hormone responsible). Sleep helps maintain a balance between the two hormones, the other being Leptin this hormone makes you feel full.
Think about the last time you had a bad nights sleep. ( This could be common if you are a new mother) How did you feel when you woke up? Exhausted. Dazed. Confused. Maybe even a little grumpy? It’s not just your brain and body that feel that way your fat cells do too. When your body is sleep deprived, it suffers from “metabolic grogginess.” But it was only four nights, so how bad could that be? You might be able to cope just fine. You are used to it, coffee does wonders. But the hormones that control your fat cells don’t feel the same way. Within just four days of sleep deprivation, your body’s ability to properly use insulin (the master storage hormone) becomes completely disrupted. When your insulin is functioning well, fat cells remove fatty acids and lipids from your blood stream and prevent storage. When you become more insulin resistant, fats (lipids) circulate in your blood and pump out more insulin. Eventually, this excess insulin ends up storing fat in all the wrong places, such as tissues like your liver.
When you don’t sleep enough, your cortisol levels rise. This is the stress hormone that is frequently associated with fat gain. Cortisol also activates reward centers in your brain that make you want food. At the same time, the loss of sleep causes your body to produce more ghrelin. A combination of high ghrelin and cortisol shut down the areas of your brain that leave you feeling unsatisfied after a meal, meaning you feel hungry all the time, even if you just ate a big meal.
Ever had a conversation like this?
“I really shouldn’t have that extra piece of cake… then again, one slice won’t really hurt, right?” Turns out, sleep deprivation is a little like being drunk. You just don’t have the mental clarity to make good complex decisions, specifically with regards to the foods you eat, or foods you want to avoid. This isn’t helped by the fact that when you’re overtired, you also have increased activity in the amygdala, the reward region of your brain. This is why sleep deprivation destroys all diets; think of the amygdala as mind control, it makes you crave high-calorie foods. Normally you might be able to fight off this desire, but because your insular cortex (another portion of your brain) is weakened due to sleep deprivation, you have trouble fighting the urge and are more likely to indulge in all the wrong foods.
Sleep can also sabotage your gym time, working out is hard enough without having to do it when we are tired. Also because we are aiming to move the fat of our bodies we need to gain muscle in order to burn the fat, lack of sleep decreases protein synthesis which causes muscle loss and could lead to injury. Sleep also being super important for the production of our growth hormones aiding in our recovery of our muscles
Try to get around seven to nine hours of sleep per night, and to make sure that one poor night of sleep isn’t followed up with a few more. It might not seem like much, but it could make all the difference and mean more than any other health decision you make.
