Lack of Sleep and Weight Gain

You have been slogging for your office work until late night, and so your normal sleeping habits have been disturbed. Eventually, you yawn frequently and feel sleepy every morning while you're at your desk, beginning another day's work. In all probabilities, you'll reach up to the coffee machine and have a cup of coffee to get some energy and chase away the sleep. If not coffee, you may munch a packet or two of potato chips. It all begins like this and gradually becomes a habit that is assumed to be normal. I'm sorry to tell you, medical scientists don't regard this habit as normal. Sleep deprivation is causing you to fuel some energy into the body to avoid sleep. While you gain temporary victory in avoiding sleep, extra kilos add to your body.

Lack of Sleep and Weight Gain
Poor sleeping habits are a striking reality in today's globalized era with majority of people experiencing numerous sleep deprivation symptoms. In the US especially, waking till late nights is associated with pride and a sign of active life. Sleeping late and then getting early for work hampers the possibility of a healthy body. Many times, you must have come across health magazines stating that adequate sleep is necessary to lose weight. It's quite true in many senses. When you sleep adequately, your body gets time to rest and to rebuilt the lost energy. Cases of weight gain in students have been found to be a reality in students of first year college courses. So, are you getting that "be it weight loss or weight gain", proper sleep is vital to achieve success in any of these pursuits. Is weight gained linked to lack of sleep? Possibly, yes. When the body is not getting adequate hours of sleep needed, functioning of body metabolism is impaired. To gain energy, the production of which has been hindered due to poor metabolism, we make it a habit to eat unhealthy food in an attempt gain instant energy and hence it adds to more body weight. Drowsiness, lack of concentration, fatigue and increased irritability are just some of the effects of lack of sleep. Leptin and grehlin are hormones that determine the appetite of a person. Long term lack of sleep tends to cause the grehlin-leptin imbalance. High levels of grehlin can induce hunger, and inadequate levels of leptin may not trigger satiation, thereby encouraging more food intake and hence weight gain.

Tips to Avoid Sleep Deprivation
Here are some tips to avoid weight gain that is resulting due to poor sleeping habits:

• Check out your sleeping patterns. For few days, try to see if you get up frequently during sleep.
• Complete sleep debt on weekends.
• Eat light and healthy foods during meals.
• Learn to cat nap. Sit relaxed in a comfortable position with eyes closed for few minutes to hours. It's not necessary to sleep completely to get a cat nap.
• Avoid caffeine in afternoon and before or immediately after lunch.
• Exercise regularly but ensure that it's not 3 hours before going to bed, else you may not be able to sleep well, since the muscles aren't relaxed.
• Practice healthy sleeping habits and don't sleep and wake up at any time of the day. This means that try to maintain regularity in sleep timings. Since this is not always possible owing to work or personal life issues, ensure that you're able to cover up the sleep debts.
• Eating healthy is associated with weight control and it also fosters good sleep. Make sure your eating and sleeping habits are well managed else weight issues may concern you to the core.

As stated already, lack of sleep and weight gain are very closely related. Poor sleeping habits can cause numerous sleep disorders like insomnia and they can also interfere with our health. I emphasize again that there are various side effects of lack of sleep, including weight gain (though weight gain is also equally possible due to unhealthy eating and excessive alcohol drinking along with lack of sleep). These are interrelated and as medical research gets more into the intricacies of relation between lack of sleep and weight, we're surely going to be more aware about value of healthy sleep.