Lack of sleep and excess weight: is there a connection?

It is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed that a per­son can­not lose weight because they do not move much or eat too fat­ty or sug­ary foods. Of course, these are the two main rea­sons for weight gain. But there is a third — lack of sleep. The less a per­son sleeps, the more he drinks cof­fee and eats sweets — choco­late, sweets, con­fec­tionery, which give more ener­gy and con­tribute to excess weight.

What does lack of sleep lead to?

Sleep for a per­son is the time when you need to com­plete­ly dis­con­nect from the wor­ries and prob­lems of the day, immerse your­self in a state of rest for 6–8 hours and “reboot” the ner­vous sys­tem. But with the mod­ern rhythm of life, many peo­ple no longer dream about sleep, but about how to do every­thing. Work, study, meet­ings with friends, sports, leisure, hob­bies — all this requires a lot of ener­gy. To some, sleep seems like a waste of time, and they dream of emu­lat­ing the few genius­es who slept lit­tle. For exam­ple, Napoleon slept 4 hours a day, Churchill — 5, and Mar­garet Thatch­er had 2–4 hours.

How­ev­er, most ordi­nary, not out­stand­ing peo­ple, who try to sleep as lit­tle as pos­si­ble, soon­er or lat­er run into seri­ous prob­lems. Lack of sleep leads to seri­ous dis­eases such as:

• Depres­sion and var­i­ous types of neu­roses;
• Hyper­ten­sion;
• Dis­eases of the heart and blood ves­sels;
• Cold and flu.

In addi­tion to health, the qual­i­ty of a person’s life is also dete­ri­o­rat­ing — he becomes ner­vous, irri­ta­ble, con­cen­trates worse at work, and grad­u­al­ly los­es pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. The appear­ance also suf­fers — cir­cles appear under the eyes, the con­di­tion of the skin and hair wors­ens, extra pounds appear.

The link between excess weight and lack of sleep

Why is being over­weight the result of lack of sleep? The answer is sim­ple: the less a per­son sleeps, the more ener­gy he seeks to receive from var­i­ous foods. For exam­ple, to wake up, you need to drink cof­fee and eat a choco­late bar, and to com­pen­sate for the lack of strength after work, you need to have a hearty din­ner. So grad­u­al­ly there are extra pounds.

Why is there extra weight?

• As a result of lack of sleep, a per­son­’s metab­o­lism slows down;
• With a lack of sleep, the bal­ance of hor­mones is dis­turbed, one of which is respon­si­ble for the onset of hunger, the oth­er for a decrease in appetite;
• The ces­sa­tion of the pro­duc­tion of soma­totropin hor­mone also con­tributes to the for­ma­tion of excess fat;
• The lack of the hor­mone sero­tonin leads to the desire to eat sweets, which con­tributes to the appear­ance of extra pounds.

If a per­son is seri­ous­ly think­ing about los­ing weight, then the first thing to do is to adjust the dai­ly rou­tine and sleep more. You should prop­er­ly plan your work­ing time and pri­or­i­tize in such a way that there is room for a good rest in a busy sched­ule.

How to change the daily routine for weight loss

As some sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies show, weight loss will be suc­cess­ful if a per­son sleeps 6–7 hours a day, while not for­get­ting the prin­ci­ples of prop­er nutri­tion and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. But each per­son is indi­vid­ual — some­one needs 8, and some­one needs 5 hours to ful­ly restore the body.

What rec­om­men­da­tions should be fol­lowed:

• It is nec­es­sary to go to bed no lat­er than 22.00–0.00;
• Do not eat 2–3 hours before bed­time;
• Take care of the qual­i­ty of bed linen and the com­fort of the bed;
• Wake up and fall asleep at the same time;
• Sleep in silence and dark­ness;
• Do not drink alco­hol and tobac­co before going to bed;
• It is unde­sir­able to play sports before going to bed;
• Try not to think about the prob­lems that both­ered you dur­ing the day.

Weight loss will be suc­cess­ful if a per­son adheres to the prin­ci­ples of prop­er nutri­tion. With a good and prop­er sleep, the appetite wakes up in the morn­ing, which means that the body is ready for a hearty break­fast. The more com­plete the break­fast, the less like­ly you are to overeat dur­ing the day.

Those who want to lose weight should also remem­ber not only about adjust­ing the dai­ly rou­tine, but also about the habits that pre­vent them from falling asleep prop­er­ly. Here is some of them:

• The habit of sleep­ing with lights on or near elec­tron­ic devices. Light, like a glow­ing phone or TV screen, inter­feres with the pro­duc­tion of mela­tonin;
• The habit of watch­ing TV or play­ing on the com­put­er before going to bed. This con­tributes to the emer­gence of unnec­es­sary thoughts and inter­feres with sleep. There­fore, the soon­er you turn them off, the bet­ter;
• The habit of wear­ing tight clothes inter­feres with the pro­duc­tion of growth hor­mone. There­fore, it is bet­ter to sleep in loose clothes.

If a per­son wakes up alert and well-rest­ed after 5 hours, then this time is enough for recov­ery. And if 10 hours are not enough, then this may indi­cate some dis­com­fort, for exam­ple, too high or too low tem­per­a­ture in the room, an uncom­fort­able bed, or more seri­ous prob­lems, such as dis­eases of the ner­vous sys­tem or endocrine dis­or­ders.

In mod­ern megac­i­ties, peo­ple do not sleep enough or not enough qual­i­ty. This is due to the fast rhythm of life, the result of which is the desire to do as much as pos­si­ble, and with the receipt of much larg­er amounts of infor­ma­tion than 15–20 years ago. More time is spent on the road to the office, traf­fic jams, the time spent at work, the active use of com­put­ers and oth­er elec­tron­ic devices — all this does not con­tribute to a qual­i­ty and mean­ing­ful rest. If we add to this the need for self-improve­ment — for­eign lan­guage cours­es, attend­ing busi­ness train­ings or play­ing sports, as well as time for the fam­i­ly, then lack of sleep becomes a seri­ous prob­lem and leads not only to weight gain, but also to the emer­gence of chron­ic dis­eases.

There­fore, it is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for a per­son to sleep well and prop­er­ly. When devel­op­ing this use­ful habit, extra pounds will not appear or will grad­u­al­ly go away. If a per­son care­ful­ly lis­tens to his body — eats right, exer­cis­es, observes the dai­ly rou­tine and sleeps enough, then he will be able to avoid seri­ous health prob­lems, improve rela­tion­ships with oth­ers and be in har­mo­ny with him­self.