Do you struggle with your weight? Do you find it near impossible to resist sugary snacks or fatty foods? Well, if you also struggle to get enough sleep, the reason might be more than simple lack of willpower.
Sleep is not only vital for overall health and mental wellbeing, but for maintaining a healthy metabolism. Even one night of poor sleep can be enough to scupper your diet and send your metabolism haywire.
Yet by understanding the deep and often surprising relationship between sleep and weight management, you can start to take steps to improve your sleep hygiene and create a healthier lifestyle.
Sleep, your body, and your metabolism
Healthy sleep makes for a healthy mind, so it’s unsurprising that a mind in need of rest does not function as it should.
Lack of sleep triggers a hormonal shift in your brain, kicking it into survival mode. This causes it to produce more ghrelin (the ‘hunger hormone’) and less leptin (the ‘fullness hormone’), triggering a hunger which can be difficult to satisfy.
Since sleep also helps to reset your metabolism, going without sufficient rest makes your body less efficient at processing glucose. Glucose that stays in your body becomes sugar, which then becomes fat. Not only will this affect your appearance, but in the long term, it will increase your risk of developing diseases linked to high blood sugar, like Type 2 diabetes.
How poor sleep affects your decision-making
Even the most well-rested people sometimes crave junk food. But there’s a difference between the occasional indulgence and not being able to stop unhealthy eating habits.
One night of poor sleep dramatically affects the decision-making landscape of the brain. The part of the brain which governs your sense of judgment and self-control – the prefrontal cortex – becomes far less active, while the regions associated with reward-seeking behaviour – the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala – kick into overdrive.
This will make you more likely to crave sweet, salty, and fatty foods, and more likely to act on those cravings. You may not even be hungry, but your brain will seek the reward regardless.
Is ‘powering through’ the way to go?
When we suffer a bad night’s sleep, we tend to feel as though we have no choice but to ‘power through’, but in fact, this can make matters worse.
Putting off sleep can disrupt your internal clock in the long term, which in turn may lead to chronic metabolic issues.
Harmful patterns, once established, are hard to break. A few sleepless nights significantly elevate the amount of cortisol your body produces. Cortisol is the ‘stress hormone’, and it encourages your body to store fat around the abdomen and seek comfort through the consumption of food, particularly high-reward (junk) food.
You may have no choice but to power through the day after a bad night but try to reestablish a consistent sleep routine afterwards.
The importance of restful sleep
Ensuring you get enough sleep isn’t a sign of laziness; it’s a sign that you prioritise your health and long-term wellbeing.
Sleep may be a passive state in terms of consciousness (more-or-less) but it is an active state for the body and mind, enabling it to perform essential functions concerning hormone recalibration, glucose management, and cravings reset. One or two bad night’s sleep may be enough to impact your weight and health, but so too is one or two nights of good sleep.
If you find yourself pestered by overwhelming food cravings, or struggling with an inability to lose excess weight, don’t resort to a crash diet or expensive supplement; simply give yourself the rest your body needs and deserves.