Sleeping between seven and nine hours, without interruptions and always getting up at a similar time contributes to a more successful adherence to diet and exercise programs focused on weight loss. This is how the American Heart Association in the latest report presented at the Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions congress that took place last week in Boston (United States).
It may seem obvious: sleeping well allows you to perform better, it is clear. But what is behind this statement? Well… Science. There are hundreds of studies linking lack of sleep to weight gain and obesity, but beyond the simple fact of sleeping and waking up rested, the metabolic processes that rest entails also play a role in the decisions we make.
“Sleep influences the factors that drive hunger and cravingsin the metabolism and in the ability to regulate it, as well as in the ability to make healthy decisions in general,” says Dr. Michael A. Grandner, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona. “Studies like this are really going to show that all of these things are connected, and sometimes sleep is the area over which we can begin to take control and open the doors to other avenues of health”, he assures.
Injuries and little caloric expenditure
It is quite obvious that if you do not sleep enough or well, the next day you are more dull and it costs more to exercise. The trainingafter lack of sleep they tend to be worst quality and furthermore, the fatigue increases the risk of injury as well as causes the overall performance to drop.
On the other hand, it is likely that being tired we opt for more relaxed activities that will also lead to a reduction in caloric expenditure by muscle fibers and, therefore, we won’t burn as many calories. In the long run, it will also cause a decrease in the volume of our muscles, losing a large amount of mitochondria and, therefore, decreasing the basal metabolism, so we will be destined to gain weight.
But beyond this basic reaction, lack of sleep causes the body to go into a stress situation that if it lasts a long time and we do not give the necessary space to rest, it can produce alterations in the organism that can affect, among other aspects, health, since the capacity of the immune system is diminished. In this way, in addition to being in a worse mood and less lucid, a predisposition to get sick as well as to be overweight develops.
During sleep, the body secretes hormones different from those of wakefulness, and among others, these sleep hormones have the function of satiating. The leptinwhich is the satiety hormone, decreases its levels after a bad rest, while the ghrelin The hunger hormone increases its level considerably if we do not sleep. Thus, lack of sleep makes our impulses are less controlled by our brain.
Appetite and tiredness
Therefore, if you do not get enough sleep, and spend more hours awake, you are more likely to have more appetite and tiredness it also makes us more susceptible to highly palatablemostly ultra-processed with disproportionate nutritional values, to try to counteract the lack of serotonin of the body. In this way, when rest patterns are altered, eating behaviors are often also affected.
Basically, and simplifying, stress and lack of sleep “make you hungry” above all for products of low nutritional quality and fast food because for the most part, the brain associates them with feelings of satiety and immediate well-being and they are generally more appetizing than a salad or broccoli.
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On the other hand, scientific studies have shown that a poor quality or sleep routine can encourage the body to develop a increased insulin resistance and increases the risk of diabetes. Prolonged wakefulness or lack of rest also increases the presence of cortisol in the body, known as the stress hormone, which is one of the main causes of increased body fat, mainly abdominal.
This accumulation of fat is due to the fact that the body begins an accumulation process as a survival technique that occurs in parallel to an increase in insulin and ghrelin, the hormones of hunger and satiety, which is usually accompanied by an increase in appetite.