Lack of sleep can lead to overindulging
Got that urge for something sweet and salty mid-day? Are you craving pizza and beer before bed but don’t know why? Well, this may be of interest. A new study, released on March 1, 2016, backs the correlation between sleep deprivation and weight gain. The study suggests that when tired, you are unable resist bad food. Researchers have likened this to the marijuana munchies. Insufficient sleep patterns disrupts the hormones that govern appetite and satiety. Those who sleep less have more time to eat and may be too tired to exercise. Obesity can lead to breathing problems that in turn adversely affect sleep.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]…participants had terrible trouble resisting the snacks…[/pullquote]
The study found that after several nights of poor sleep, healthy volunteers who took part in the study reached for snacks containing more calories—and nearly twice as much fat—than ones they favoured after sleeping well for the same period. When sleepy, the participants had terrible trouble resisting the snacks, even when they were full. In those who were sleep deprived the researchers found higher and more persistent levels of endocannabinoid 2-AG, a chemical that ramps up the pleasure felt when eating, especially sweet or salty high-fat foods. In well-rested volunteers, levels of 2-AG rose in the morning, peaked around midday, and declined again. However, in the sleep-deprived, levels rose 33 per cent higher, peaked at 2 pm, and remained high until 9 pm.
A sense of pride is associated by pulling all-nighters, and the effects of drinking coffee in order to stay up, or eating a bag of chips and other comfort foods, shrugs off the immediate effects of drowsiness. The descent into obesity and sleep loss starts simply enough. Susan Zafarlotfi, PhD, clinical director of the Institute for Sleep and Wake Disorders at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey asserts that: “Sleep debt is like credit card debt. If you keep accumulating credit card debt, you will pay high interest rates or your account will be shut down until you pay it all off. If you accumulate too much sleep debt, your body will crash.”
“It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived—meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep—your metabolism will not function properly,” says Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep and the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Arizona.
There two hormones that are key in the process of how sleep affects our ability to lose weight: ghrelin and leptin. “Ghrelin is the ‘go’ hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived, you have more ghrelin. Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin,” explains Breus.
In a study completed in 2006, researchers followed roughly 60,000 women for 16 years, asking them about their weight, sleep habits, diet, and other aspects of their lifestyle. At the start of the study, all of the women were healthy, and none were obese; 16 years later, women who slept five hours or less per night had a 15 per cent higher risk of becoming obese, compared to women who slept seven hours per night. The result is those who change their sleep pattern from five hours to seven will see a loss of weight over a period of time, but those who sleep eight hours or more will see no weight loss.
In order to improve sleep and diet, avoid eating fatty foods such as beer and pizza before bedtime. Properly sleeping will keep hormones such as endocannabinoid at bay, the same hormone associated with the effects of smoking weed and getting the munchies. Sleeping properly and eating healthy will help combat issues of obesity and other eating disorders.