The Link Between Poor Sleep And Weight Gain - 5 Things To Know

If you think you are getting more done by sleeping less, you may be right. 

But the cost of doing such will take a toll on your long-term health.

Over recent decades, research has revealed that sleep deprivation can have a devastating effect on your overall health – not to mention your figure.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommends at least 7 hours of sleep to get the maximum benefits of body rest.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), getting less than 7 hours can significantly increase the risk of many life-threatening diseases.

This includes heart problems, cancer, arthritis, kidney disease, stroke, diabetes and even depression.

The worst part is that there are about 70 million people in the U.S. alone struggling with a lack of sleep.

The main problem with not getting enough rest is that it plays tricks on your brain. 

When you are feeling drained from a sleepless night, your metabolism essentially goes haywire.

That creates a chain reaction of adverse effects in your body. 

Such as a hormonal imbalance and increased stress levels.

So the less sleep you get on a daily basis or the more erratic your sleep pattern is, the more you wire your mind and body to over-consume food.

Worse, lacking energy also means your judgment is skewed when it comes to choosing the right food. 

Your nutrition becomes compromised and you will not be as efficient in burning those excess calories.

As such, you could also develop sleep apnoea, a condition where a person’s breathing is interrupted while sleeping.

This happens when a person is overweight and develops fat around the neck area. 

So that will make the quality of a person’s sleep even worse, further aggravating the effects of sleep deprivation.

Also, sleep apnoea increases the risk of getting a heart attack or stroke, which makes things even more complicated.

Even if you think you are living a healthy lifestyle by working out and eating a clean diet, a lack of sleep can seriously undermine your efforts.

Thus, the key to better health is by getting better sleep. 

Before we get into that, let us go a bit deeper and understand precisely how sleep deprivation makes you pack on the pounds:

1.  Sleep Deprivation Messes With Your Eating Habits

A study from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition discovered that there is a strong connection between not sleeping and an increase in calorie intake.

People who get enough rest and those who stay up late - burn a similar amount of calories.

But there is one crucial difference between them.

People who have the habit of skipping sleep will take in more calories (about 300 every day). 

And when this adds up over the weeks and months, you are going to see the pounds add up faster than you think.

Here is another risk of sleeping late. 

You are way more likely to snack throughout the day because you are low on energy.

What happens is that you misinterpret your fatigue for hunger. 

That is because people tend to produce more lipids in their system that influence the way they experience eating food.

Thus, you are going to want to eat food that will not necessarily give your body what it actually needs. 

When you are well-rested, you might choose a nice healthy salad or grass-fed beef with Brussels sprouts.

But if you have not been sleeping well, you probably head down to your nearest fast-food joint and order a thick juicy burger filled with saturated fats and triglycerides.

When your bloodstream is full of these unhealthy substances, that can lead to other complications like insulin resistance and increased body fat.

The reason this happens is that there are parts of your brain that are affected by sleep deprivation. 

This makes it harder for you to use your better judgment and higher reasoning.

That makes you switch to a sort of caveman mode where you instinctively want to take on more calories as a defence mechanism against exhaustion.

With lack of sleep comes higher stress levels, too. 

Being fatigued triggers your body to produce stress hormones such as cortisol.

Usually, this should only kick in during a fight-or-flight situation. 

You get a massive dump of energy in your bloodstream. 

But it is never meant to stay in your body for too long.

But when you push yourself to stay awake, your cortisol levels remain elevated all the time, which is dangerous. 

As you probably guessed, one side effects of prolonged cortisol is having a powerful urge to overeat.

2.  You Will Be Less Motivated To Get Up And Move

Simply put, the less energy you have, the more lethargic you become. 

And the less likely you feel like exercising. 

When you are up and about burning those calories, the next step is to put on weight.

Couple that with bad eating habits - also caused by sleep deprivation, you got a recipe for health disaster. 

With the added pounds and lack of cardiovascular activities, you will be on the path to obesity.

Furthermore, the National Sleep Foundation has found that sleep apnoea - caused by weight gain - puts people in a vicious cycle.

Interrupted breathing at night means poor sleep, which is followed by less energy during the day.

And all of this makes it harder to exercise and make better food choices. 

So keeping the weight off becomes even more of an uphill battle.

3.  You Fat Cells Will Not  Get Any Sleep Either

Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine discovered that there is a relationship between poor sleep and a person's fat cells. 

In a study they did, doctors found that fat cells respond 30% less than usual to insulin, an energy regulating hormone.

Fat cells are meant to eliminate harmful fatty acids and lipids from the bloodstream to prevent long-term damage to your body. 

However, skipping on sleep will impair your fat cells’ ability to do their job.

So, that leaves those fatty acids and lipids free to roam in your system.

On top of gaining weight, you will also be at serious risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

Another factor behind insulin resistance is overeating sugar-laden and inflammatory food in particular which of course is related to a lack of sleep.

4.  Your Metabolism Suffers

In a study called The Metabolic Consequences Of Sleep Deprivation also from the University of Chicago, experts found a connection between diabetes and not sleeping enough.

Aside from fat cells not responding to insulin, another effect of sleep deprivation is a disruption of vital metabolic processes.

Such as properly utilizing carbohydrates and hormone regulation.

And once your metabolism goes off the rails, it can lead to premature aging.

5.  Carving For Carbs

The other thing about poor sleep and bad eating habits is that people seek carb-rich foods in particular.

In another study called High-Glycemic-Index Carbohydrate Meals Shorten Sleep Onset from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they found that the short-term gratification of eating unhealthy carbohydrates disrupts a person’s sleep patterns.

When this happens, poor sleep feeds into the urge to eat even more unhealthy food. 

This keeps the cycle going and causes people to put on even more weight.

How To Break The Cycle Of Bad Sleeping Habits

The truth about sleep is that you are not simply resting. 

You are actually providing your brain and metabolic functions an opportunity to recover from the demands of a long day.

So, the best way to get started on a lifestyle of healthy sleeping habits is by figuring out what time you want to wake up every day.

If you need to get up at 6am, then work your way back 7 or 8 hours. 

You then have an idea of what time to get to bed in the evening which should be around 10pm in this case.

That way, you can make sure that you have adequate time to shut down for the night. 

Not only that, it is better to wake up at the same time every day to stabilize your circadian rhythm.

Also, avoid drinking coffee after 3pm. 

Caffeine stays in your body longer than you think, so cut yourself off by that time and switch to other drinks instead. 

But avoid sugary soft and energy drinks.

Lastly, make time for exercise as this also plays a role in better sleep. 

Find a suitable slot in your daily routine to get this done, whether it is the first thing in the morning or a couple of hours before bedtime.

Soon enough, your body will get used to this new schedule. 

Then you will fall asleep faster and wake up without relying on your alarm clock or phone in the morning.

Remember, it all starts by disrupting the cycle.

However, if you are having problems getting to sleep even after making some lifestyle changes, you might need another approach.

There is a technique called Mind Balancing which allows you to put yourself in a state of deep sleep in a matter of minutes. 

And maximize the time you are asleep.

Not many people know about this yet, but more and more sleep deprived sufferers have found relief by applying this simple method.