Sleep more to lose weight!

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Can sleeping more help you lose weight?

Length of sleep time and percentage of general sleep in the different sleep stages are linked to an increase in hunger and intake of calories from fat and carbohydrates, as well as a decrease in metabolic rate. This may account for the link between obesity and sleep problems, according to researchers from St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and Columbia University.

It has been long known that sleep and diet are closely linked. A 2006 study said that sleep is more important in maintaining weight than diet, while a 2007 study suggested that those who do not get enough sleep are less likely to prepare their own food, making them more likely to eat fast food.

The experts looked into how sleep habits affect hunger, in order to determine whether different sleep stages, rather than the time spent sleeping, can alter food habits in healthy adults, including appetite and cravings.

Find out more on:
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251806.php

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Higher intake of fats and carbohydrates was linked to lower percentage of REM sleep time and slow wave sleep.

The findings of the study reiterate the fact that length of sleep is clearly important. However, they also demonstrate that the percentage of time spent in each stage plays a significant part in the correlation between obesity and sleep.

Researcher Ari Shechter concluded:

"Any number of various factors like obstructive sleep apnea, certain drugs/medications, chronic exposure to short sleep duration, shift work, jet lag, and changes in the scheduling of the sleep episode, can affect sleep stage quantity and distribution. Our data may provide an explanation for the greater obesity prevalence observed within some of these conditions."

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Hence, when we sleep we have a certain prohibitive hunger hormone produced by the brain which allows us not to wakeup from hunger when we sleep. We can also think about sleep as being a way to "charge" our body's batteries. If we don't sleep, what it the body's other source of energy? Food! so if you sleep less, and must charge your batteries anyway, your body will ask for food. Worse, at night, our body will be more likely to transform sugars in fat because our whole digestion process is in a slow mode.