If you’re among the millions of chronically sleep-deprived adults, research shows that getting just one hour more sleep each night can improve your diet and even help you lose weight. has been shown to have potential.
For many people, a good night’s rest is hard to come by. Sleep experts say the average adult should get at least seven hours of sleep each night. But at least one in three of her adults cannot close her eyes enough on a daily basis. Some cut back on sleep so they can stay up late at work or surf the web. Millions of adults also suffer from sleep-disrupting conditions such as chronic insomnia, sleep apnea, and restless leg syndrome.
Understanding the factors that influence your daily eating decisions is an important step in improving your overall health. explore social and cultural forces. And how well you sleep at night is a big question, as many studies now show.
Why bad sleep can make you eat more.
For example, studies show that consistent sleep deprivation can set the stage for weight gain. Studies show that for women, a few short nights of sleep lowers her levels of GLP-1, a hormone that signals satiety. In men, lack of sleep causes a spike in ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates hunger.
At the same time, sleep-deprived people experience changes in brain activity. Studies show that when a person misses sleep, areas of the brain involved in pleasure-seeking and reward respond more strongly to junk food such as candy, donuts, and pizza, making him less likely to want to eat fattening foods. It has been shown to generate powerful impulses. Lack of sleep also reduces activity in other parts of the brain that regulate food intake, making it difficult for people to exercise self-control.
Marie-Pierre Saint-Onge, Associate Professor of Nutritional Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Director of Columbia University’s Sleep Center of Excellence, said:
Last year, a group of researchers analyzed data from 36 studies involving hundreds of thousands of participants. Those who regularly slept less than seven hours a night had her a 26% higher risk of being obese than those who slept the recommended amount, she found.
One caveat is that this analysis only showed an association between sleep deprivation and weight gain. To better understand the relationship between sleep and diet, scientists conducted a clinical trial that recruited healthy adults and monitored their diet as they restricted their sleep each night.
One study found that people who slept five and a half hours a night for two weeks burned an extra 300 extra calories a day, mostly from snacks such as pretzels, cookies, chips, ice cream and candy. . St-Onge analyzed many of these trials and concluded that, on average, he ate 300 to 550 more calories on sleep-deprived days compared to days when he was able to sleep for seven hours or more.
Abdominal fat “swelling”
Perhaps most strikingly, sleep deprivation appears to promote a particularly dangerous form of body fat.
In a study published earlier this year in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists found that when healthy adults only got four hours of sleep each night for two weeks, participants not only ate more and gained weight. , abdominal fat, especially the visceral fat surrounding internal organs such as the kidneys, liver and intestines.
High levels of visceral fat increase your chances of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers.
How good sleep can improve your diet
The good news for those of us who are chronically sleep deprived is that we can reverse the negative effects of sleep deprivation on diet and waistlines. , scientists recruited 80 overweight adults who routinely get an average of about six hours of sleep per night. One group received counseling on how to get more sleep. The other group received no additional information and served as a control.
An important part of the counseling session was training people to stay away from smartphones and electronic devices while preparing for bed. , “We were basically teaching people how to live electronically-free near bedtime.”
Researchers then followed the group for two weeks. They found that people in the counseling group increased their sleep by about 1.2 hours per night and reduced their food intake by 270 calories per day, even though they were not receiving dietary advice. They also reported that they weighed slightly less, felt better and had more energy compared to the control group.
“They said they realized it was okay not to reply to every text message an hour before bedtime,” Tasari said.
St-Onge of Columbia University says everyone should generally aim for about seven hours of sleep each night. If you wake up feeling well rested and not feeling tired or tired all the time, you know if you are getting enough sleep.
The key is to turn off your device and go to bed at a reasonable time. “For some people, just six hours of sleep is enough, for others it takes six and a half hours,” St-Onge added. “
Questions about healthy eating? Email EatingLab@washpost.com I may answer your question in a future column.
