Can sleep loss cause weight gain?

Can Sleep Loss Cause Weight Gain?

If you’re wondering if there is any kind of relationship between sleep and weight, research has shown overwhelming evidence that the answer is yes. Good sleep goes hand in hand with weight loss and poor sleep can result in weight gain, it’s that simple!

Let’s take a deeper look at the sleep and weight loss relationship, as well as the opposite, to understand more about how sleep affects your weight. We will also give you details on how to improve your sleep so that you can enhance your journey toward a stable, healthy weight.

How does sleep affect weight?

In simple terms, sleep helps the body to regulate our hormones, which is important for our body to be able to regulate our weight. If we don’t get enough good sleep, our hormones can become unbalanced which can affect a myriad of functions in our body including our body’s ability to regulate our weight.

If an adult does not get enough quality sleep, they are said to be almost 50% more at risk of lifestyle impacts like weight gain and obesity, as well as increased risk of diseases like heart disease, strokes, and depression.

The relationship between sleep loss and weight gain

Poor sleep can affect other areas of life too. Often in ways we are not even aware of. Experts recommend that a good amount of sleep for an adult is anywhere between seven and eight hours a night. When you don’t get this recommended amount of sleep it can affect your body by;

Increasing your desire to eat more high calorie foods, as your body is trying to get in more energy.
Decrease your ability to resist high calorie, high sugar foods.
Increasing the hormone ghrelin in the body which increases the appetite, making you feel hungrier more often.
Lowering your energy for exercise. A lack of sleep makes you less likely to exercise or participate in physical activity.

How is sleep related to physical activity?

Physical activity requires energy to move, right? When you don’t get a good night’s sleep, you wake up feeling tired and without energy. Your body is using the small amount of energy it has to complete basic functions like staying awake, breathing, digestion, and brain function. A lack of sleep leads to a more sedentary lifestyle and less motivation to exercise.

There is a lot of research that shows that daily exercise can actually help to improve your sleep. However, it’s a double-edged sword; because lack of sleep = less energy = less exercise and physical activity = less sleep.

Tips For Quality Sleep During Weight Loss

Now that we understand the sleep and weight loss relationship well, what can we do to improve our sleep patterns to improve our chances of losing weight? There are several tips to follow that can help you improve your sleep. Experts are calling it, improving your sleep hygiene habits, which basically means implementing daily habits that will improve the hormone balance in your brain and body to give you a better chance at a good night’s sleep.

Here are the expert tips for a better night's sleep:

Stop drinking caffeine or caffeinated drinks by at least 2pm in the afternoon.
Avoid alcohol and high-fat foods in the evening
Do a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise or high-intensity physical activity per day. But avoid doing this in the evening before bed.
Turn off all electronic devices like phones and iPads an hour before bed. Even electronics in night-mode are stimulating to the brain.
Set your room up for good sleep by dimming the lights, using only lamps with warm lightbulbs, and making sure the temperature is around 18 degrees Celsius.
Create a calming nightly routine for yourself like taking a bath with calming essential oils in like lavender, listening to meditations, music, relaxation exercises, or reading a book.
Make sure your room is dark without any stimulating blue or red lights on.

How does a good mattress improve sleep?

The correlation between good sleep and a good mattress is indisputable. You can have the cleanest, healthiest sleep hygiene habits, but if you are sleeping on an uncomfortable mattress, you will not sleep well. Here's where Dial-a-Bed can help!

We offer one of South Africa’s largest ranges of bed brands and mattresses that are designed to enhance and improve your sleep every night. We are SA’s largest branded bedding retailer, and we guarantee that with the healthy sleep habits we’ve mentioned, in combination with a great mattress from us, you’re going to get a good night’s sleep!

FAQs

Does sleep affect weight loss?

Poor sleep can affect your body's ability to lose weight because it affects the hormone balance in your body and makes you crave more high-calorie, high-sugar foods for energy.

Why is sleep so important for weight loss?

Good sleep creates a good hormonal balance in the body which in turns gives you more energy to exercise and makes you more likely to make good food choices.

Is sleep loss linked to weight gain?

Experts have linked poor sleep to weight gain, yes. Lack of sleep, or less than the recommended 7 hours per day, can affect things like our hormones, our energy, our willpower and more.