

It’s best to consume caffeine containing products early in the day before noon allowing about 6 to 8 hours of caffeine’s affect to wear off. This stimulant is believed to interfere with sleep by blocking adenosine receptors.

Sweet and salty foods tend to be higher in calories which will make it harder for a person craving these foods to keep weight off. A 2015 study in the journal Sleep found sleep-deprived individuals had 33% higher levels of a chemical compound which increases the pleasant feelings of food, especially of sweet or salty high-fat foods. Here’s a twist on having a sleep debt – it can alter brain chemicals making individuals unable to resist snacks, particularly for sweet and salty foods. Foods high in fat and sugar are preferred.Feeling tired throughout the day can mean you may opt to choose more pre-packaged foods, higher in fat and calories instead of fixing a healthier home-cooked meal. The lack of physical activity can lead to a decrease in metabolism with less calories being burned. This means you won’t feel like going to the gym to work out or go for a long walk. Lacking sufficient zzzz’s causes leptin levels to go down while ghrelin levels go up.Ĭhronic sleepiness leads to a lack of energy and feeling exhausted. Leptin tells us when to stop eating while ghrelin tells us it’s time to eat. These two hormones are critical to whether we may gain too much weight or not. There are also two hormones, leptin and ghrelin, whose levels are affected by lack of sleep. If this sluggish feeling is happening several times a day, our caloric intake rapidly adds up. Often when we feel sluggish, we tend to seek out food to give us a boost of energy. If you are chronically sleep deprived, your sleepiness may be registering to you as being hungry. You are considered sleep deprived it you routinely sleep less than 5 hours a night.ģ ways insufficient sleeps affects weight gain Most Americans average about 6 hours each night during the work week. The National Sleep Foundation advises that adults get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night. It is estimated that 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders compromising the quality of life and adversely affecting their health. Sleep inadequacy is linked to motor vehicle accidents, industrial disasters, and medical and occupational errors. Sleep insufficiency is increasingly seen as a threat to public health. Failing to obtain sufficient sleep can make it even more of a struggle for some individuals in dealing with weight management. Many studies have shown lack of sleep to be associated with an increase in gaining weight. If getting enough sleep seems to be an elusive stranger in the night resulting in tiredness and irritability the next day, add to this another consequence – a bigger waistline.
