Not Getting Enough Sleep? Watch Your Weight!

Could the key to weight loss for some people be as simple as getting some extra shuteye? Possibly. New research suggests that people who don’t get enough sleep tend to weigh more — and that sleep can affect levels of the appetite-regulating hormones leptin and ghrelin.

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Not getting enough sleep has been linked to overweight and obesity. Lack of sleep can change your body’s metabolism and hormonal function. Lack of sleep also alters mood, decreases motor and mental skills. It also affects other hormones such as leptin and ghrelin.

Sleep and weight gain

Leptin and ghrelin are hormones that help your body to control appetite, weight gain and weight loss. Leptin tends to decrease appetite and ghrelin tends to increase appetite.

When you have chronic sleep loss, ghrelin levels increase, causing to increase your appetite and leptin levels decrease.

When your appetite increases, you crave for high energy foods like sweets, chocolates and ice creams. As your leptin levels decrease, you think that you are hungrier than you need to be.

Sleep apnea and weight gain

Sleep apnea can contribute to weight gain. Although, sleep apnea can affect anyone, it is more common in overweight people. The other risk factors of sleep apnea include age, family history and having large neck.

If you suffer from sleep apnea, you are less likely to enter into deep and restorative phases of sleep. Therefore, extra pounds will be added to your body.

Enough sleep to prevent obesity

If you have sleep apnea, your doctor can prescribe a therapy or other treatments to cure sleep apnea. Your doctor can suggest regular exercise for improving sleep quality and asks you to reduce or eliminate intake of caffeine, tobacco and alcohol.

If your airway is obstructed by enlarged tonsils, your doctor can suggest a surgery to remove those organs. Your doctor also prescribes some medications to use after surgery for sleeping through all the night.

You should diagnose your sleep problems and get it treated for losing weight. Sleep loss can keep you away from achieving success of weight loss.

Health food habits like taking smaller meals, avoiding spicy and fried foods before bed time can help you to have quality sleep.

Meditation before going to sleep can help your mind and body to relax. Clear negative thoughts from your mind before going to bed. Keep your sleep environment cool, dark and noise free so that you will not get disturbed while sleeping.