Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could sleep your way to being slim?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work like that. Getting more sleep does make it easier for your body to manage your weight by restoring your circadian rhythm (body clock) to its optimum levels, allowing you to benefit a lot more from a healthy diet and activity since your body doesn’t need to fight your efforts to lose weight anymore!

Many studies have shown that the optimum amount of sleep is 7.5 hours per night. This needs making lifestyle choices since you can’t simply bank your sleep by getting six hours a day during the week and catching up on the weekend. You need to remember that your body clock operates on a 24-hour cycle and resets itself every day, so an hour of sleep lost in a day is simply lost for good.

1. You feel less hungry when you sleep better

Different proteins within our body control our appetite by either turning it off or on. Lack of sleep results in inhibiting the proteins that turn off our appetite, meaning that we won’t only feel hungrier during the day, but we won’t be as readily satisfied. Some studies showed the effects of lack of sleep being as dramatic as increasing your appetite by up to 42% during the day.

2. Good sleep reduces daytime stress levels

Cortisol has been identified as the primary stress hormone and a key culprit in leading to obesity. As well as decreasing lean body mass, cortisol levels turn on our appetite. Due to cortisol being controlled by our body clock (circadian rhythm), waking up from a full night’s sleep results in cortisol levels significantly decreasing instantly after breakfast. This is why you should never skip breakfast if you’re trying to lose weight. However, cortisol levels remain high throughout the day when we fail to have a good night’s sleep, interfering with our appetite regulation and resulting in more food being converted into body fat.

3. Sleeping helps your body burn calories

An interesting piece of research about shift workers showed that higher incidents of type 2 diabetes occurred amongst night shift workers. Upon further investigation, researchers discovered that a lack of quality sleep inhibits insulin levels, which means that our bodies can no longer burn calories as efficiently. As a result, our cells are less receptive to insulin resulting in us feeling more tired and, instead of burning them, calories are converted to body fat.

4. Muscle mass increases with sleeping quality

Fat cells burn much calories than muscle cells and, therefore, the more muscle we have, the more calories our bodies burn in a day. Lack of quality sleep reduces our bodies’ ability to produce muscle mass which means that our bodies convert more calories into body fat.

University of Chicago researchers have investigated the impact of sleep on two groups of subjects. One group slept 5.5 hours per night, whilst the other slept 8.5 hours every night. Whilst both groups were undergoing a similar dietary plan, both groups were able to lose similar amounts of weight, however the sleep-deprived group lost, on average, 50% less fat.

So pair up your healthy diet & exercise plan with good sleep and see your body transform much quicker.