It's all very well following a healthy diet and exercise plan, but if you don't get enough rest and sleep you will not see the benefits of your efforts. Lack of sleep can seriously block your fat-burning efforts, can undermine your mental health and ability to concentrate, destroy your relationships, prematurely age you, and undermine your body's ability to fight disease.
Read on to find out why.
Sleep - the final part of the jigsaw.
Sleep more to lose weight
It is possible to lose weight by spending just one extra hour a night in bed!
Leptin, a chemical released during sleep, suppresses the production of fat cells by curbing appetite. Leptin helps to control feelings of fullness, but when sleep is restricted leptin levels are reduced.
A study involving 500 adults aged between 27 and 40 over a thirteen year period showed that in those women who put on an average of 5lb in weight, their sleep fell from 7.7 to 7.3 hours per night. Those that put on the most weight slept for fewer than 6 hours a night.
Unfortunately, the longer you stay up the more likely you are to eat and low levels of leptin increase the urge. Other research has shown that leptin levels can be severely reduced by restricting sleep over just 6 days!
In one clinical trial where volunteers' sleep was restricted, their leptin levels went down and their desire for carbohydrates (sugar) increased by a massive 45%. It was as if their bodies were so tired they needed the sweet foods to keep them awake.
Weight gain is found around the stomach and waist area, and even on your calves - when you're not producing optimal amounts of human growth hormone (which is produced while you sleep), fat is often stored on the calves.
If you get fewer than 8 hours' sleep a night then you will end up with a higher level of body fat and a higher BMI.
Get enough sleep.
Stress and sleep are inversely related - the less sleep you get, the more difficulty you will find in adapting to challenging situations; the more sleep you have, the less stressful everyday pressures seem.
Sleep is not only important for your overall health, but it is essential for ensuring that your body is working at its best and that you are physically and emotionally able to cope with the demands of day-to-day living. Sleep gives your body time to recharge its batteries, enabling tissue repair and cell growth to take place. A lack of sleep is perceived as yet another stress by the body.
As a society, we have pushed the waking day to its limit and sleep has become almost a luxury, rather than the necessity it really is. The amount of sleep we get is constantly decreasing. Before the invention of the electric light, people went to bed when it was dark and slept around 9 hours until dawn. Even in the 1960's we were sleeping for between 8 and 8.9 hours a night whereas now most people get only 6.9 and 7 hours sleep. Cramming TV, shopping, Internet surfing into the night-time hours. We are all under enormous pressure to do as much as possible. We are identified and judged by our achievements and our 'busyness'. Not surprisingly, we need to stay up later and later in order to fit it all in.
Scientists have looked at cortisol levels in saliva samples and found that when people are sleep deprived the rate at which the body deals with cortisol between four and nine in the evening is six times slower than it is in people who have had enough sleep. Cortisol levels stay up too high and for too long. What's more, the ageing process appears to be increased during these hours. So a lack of sleep can not only increase your levels of cortisol, making you more apple-shaped (fat around the middle!), it will also make you age more quickly.
Inadequate sleep may actually cause insulin resistance too. One study looked at people who only managed to get 4 hours' sleep a night over six nights. They reported that the pattern of insulin and glucose was nearly identical to that which one would expect in patients with Type 2 diabetes. In 2001, at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Diabetes Association, evidence was presented showing that people who slept for less than 6.5 hours per night (compared to 7.5-8.5 hours) released 50% more insulin and were 40% less sensitive to its effects.
If you are well rested, you will be better equipped - both emotionally and physically - to cope with the demands of a busy life. Not getting enough sleep lowers your immune response. A recent study showed that missing even a few hours a night on a regular basis can decrease the number of 'natural killer cells', which are responsible for fighting off invaders such as bacteria and viruses. This will come as no surprise to those of us who succumb to colds and other illnesses when we are 'run down' - normally after periods of insufficient sleep.
There are two main types of sleep problems: difficulty in getting off to sleep when you go to bed; and falling off to sleep but waking up in the middle of the night and finding it difficult to get back to sleep again.
Our physical and mental states are so intertwined that they constantly feed off one another. If something is worrying you, your body can become tense and find it hard to let go and relax. This makes sleep more elusive, which, of course, makes you feel more stressed. You worry that you are not sleeping, and are concerned about how you will cope the following day. And if you are experiencing physical symptoms, such as aches and pains, this too can make you worried and agitated, causing more tension and feelings of stress. And, not surprisingly, sleep suffers too. It's yet another vicious circle.
Source: Fat around the Middle - Dr Marilyn Glenville