What if you could close your eyes, nod off to dreamland and wake up the next morning feeling refreshed, awake and slimmer. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Well science is telling us that it may not be too far from the truth with the latest research linking sleep with weight so in this article I'll show you how you can lose weight while sleeping.
Let's first look at the research behind this. While you sleep your body goes into repair mode. Your muscles and tissues are rebuilt, tissue is repaired if needed and you basically are renewing yourself. But two hormones are also increased while you sleep namely leptin and ghrelin.
Leptin and Ghrelin are strongly linked to appetite. Leptin sends the signal to your brain that you are full, and ghrelin tells your brain to eat again. While you sleep, leptin is increased so you don't feel hungry - that's why you can go so long without food at night. But come morning, ghrelin kicks in again and you start feeling hungry.
If you don't get enough sleep then these hormones don't get a chance to do their job effectively and you'll find that the next day you'll be craving more food and never really feel full.
A study in Chicago studied the effects of weight loss and sleep further by measuring the levels of leptin and ghrelin in 12 healthy men. They subjected the men to 2 days of sleep deprivation and monitored their hormone levels. Sure enough appetite was significantly impacted with all men noticing an increase in cravings for high carbohydrate, calorie dense foods.
Once they went back to their normal sleeping patters, their appetites returned to normal.
So how does this study help you with your weight loss goals?
Obviously it means putting more sleep hours into your day if you can do it, or at least catching up on the weekends. You should be aiming for at least 8 hours a day. You may find that getting an extra hour or two of sleep will help stop cravings for sugary snacks and therefore you'll lose more weight in the process.
So if you really can lose weight while sleeping then what have you got to lose? Sounds good to me - I'm off for a nap.
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