What Sleep Has to Do with Weight Loss
By Christine Sutherland | July 3, 2008
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Up until recently we used to admire people who claimed they needed very little sleep. There was even a view that a need for little sleep was related to higher intelligence!
But now we know that a lack of sufficient sleep is one of the main causes of overweight, as well as mental and physical illness.
In fact a lack of sufficient sleep is now being seen as a modern disease, creating stress, compromising the body’s ability to regenerate, and even lowering our basic metabolic rate. Our metabolic rate plays a crucial role in weight loss and is every bit as important as the amount of food that we eat, and the amount of activity we have.
For instance many diet companies will tell you that weight loss is simple, just a matter of “energy in/energy out”. This is a particularly stupid lie, because the state of your metabolism is more important than either.
Because the quality of your sleep has such a big impact on weight loss, quality sleep is an essential part of any weight loss program, although the actual amount varies from one individual to another. Most adults need at least 7.5-8.0 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. Children and teenagers require much more - around 12-13 hours of sleep each night.
When it comes to recovery from serious illness, quality sleep becomes even more important.
9 Steps to Improve Sleep
1 Sleep time is as precious as the air you breathe, so guard it well. Who cares if the house is a mess! It’s far more important that every member of the family get their sleep time.
If sleep interruption is beyond your control (for example if you have small children or a sick partner who needs care during the night) make sure you get extra sleep during the day, and also make sure you get some nights off.
2 Have a routine. A time for slowing down in the evening, a time for going to bed, a time for waking up, a time for all of the activities you need to do in the day. Although you’ll obviously vary your routine from time to time, your regular routine will help to train your brain for efficient “shut down”.
3 Slow Down Before Bed. Keep away from alcohol or stimulants for at least an hour before bed, and avoid stimulating books or television programs. Dim the lights, play some nice music, and relax.
4 Remove Unacceptable Stress from Your Life. Oftentimes people find it hard to relax enough to go to sleep, or to stay asleep, because they’re plagued by troublesome thoughts. There are highly-effective techniques to both remove the stress, and to deal with the thoughts. The two most commonly used are Logotherapy and NeuroStim, both of which you’ll find help for on the forums at TopLifeSolutions.com.
5 Prepare Your Bedroom. Of course your bed and pillows etc should be comfortable! But in addition your room should be dark and on the cool side, with fresh air. Those are ideal sleeping conditions.
6 If you should be sleeping, stay in your bed. I know that some “experts” tell people they shouldn’t stay in bed if they can’t sleep, but I really can’t agree. Their theory is that bed should only be associated with sleep, not with waking, but there are lots of things linked to bed that are no problem at all, like reading, having sex, resting, being unwell, or whatever. I say “stay there” because this will teach your brain that bed is the right place to be at this time of night.
And there’s very good evidence for my stance on this. Take the example of a baby or small child whom we’re helping to move into a good sleep routine. One thing we never do is, after a time of trying, get them up out of their bed! The idea is to provide as little stimulation as we possibly can because otherwise that would be training them to be wakeful - the exact opposite of what we’re hoping to achieve.
This means that you can be confident that staying in bed is the best thing you can do to build better sleep habits.
7 Be Active During the Day. A good level of physical activity is essential to good sleep.
8 Enjoy good relationships with everyone around you. If you have strained relationships, or adversarial relationships, this will detract from your sense of wellbeing and therefore will definitely impact on your sleep. Get your relationships in shape and you’ll enjoy much better sleep.
9 Enjoy a good, healthy diet with lots of variety. If you eat well your body is easily able to produce the hormones required for good sleep. Avoid fad diets like the extreme low-carb diet for example, because this robs the body of the ability to produce adequate melatonin (and also causes depression!).
Topics: Weight Loss |
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