Science says: you gain weight from little sleep
Nowadays, it seems like everyone around me (including myself) suffers from insomnia. All day long, I fight against my sleep, only to spend a night worrying about almost everything that has happened in my life so far. What do you do at such a moment? Well, you just grab that phone to take a look around on Vestiaire Collective. And no, that damn phone certainly doesn't contribute to a better night's sleep, but we have to entertain ourselves somehow.
Sleeping well is therefore more of an exception than a rule; unfortunately, that's the truth. Figures from the CBS show that one in five Dutch people suffers from this, so there are quite a few night owls wandering around in our country. But what do those short nights actually do to us?
Besides the fact that we become incredibly grumpy the next morning, unfortunately, little sleep really does have an effect on our bodies. To get straight to the point: not getting enough sleep can lead to weight gain. In fact, according to sleep expert and neuroscientist Els van der Helm, one hour less sleep per night can lead to people eating about 140 extra calories the next day. So, due to lack of sleep, someone can gain a half a kilo per week. Well, great then. You would expect that with all that worrying in bed, you would burn more calories, but not at all.
Various studies have shown that sleep deprivation leads to an increased appetite. This has everything to do with the hormones ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is a hormone that sends hunger signals to your brain. Before you eat, ghrelin levels are high, and at the moment you start eating, they decrease. Leptin is the hormone that gives us a feeling of fullness and thus suppresses appetite. You guessed it: due to a lack of sleep, your body produces more ghrelin and less leptin, which increases your appetite and makes you automatically eat more.
In addition, little sleep affects your resting metabolic rate (RMR), the speed at which your body burns energy when you are fully at rest. Researchers have discovered that prolonged sleep deprivation can lower your RMR, meaning your metabolism is not optimal. Moreover, after such a miserable night, you are often far too tired to exercise, so you can also forget about a nice workout.
Finally, little sleep can make you less capable of making healthy choices regarding food. We probably all recognize this, because how nice is it to order some food when we are dead tired? And if we are at it, we also immediately add something tasty, because we are so incredibly exhausted and pathetic. Also, your body, due to lack of sleep, seeks quick energy, which increases your craving for sugars. All pure misery.
Well, I certainly haven't given my fellow bad sleepers a boost with this article. Shall we these tips try Amayziner Wieke again together?
