Lose Weight by Sleeping More
Yesterday I wrote about my motivation to find all the lost hours that have disappeared from my life. Sleep seems to be a prime suspect for the theft. I have always been a sound sleeper. I tend to drift off within minutes of hitting the sack. Waking up is another story. The older I get, the harder it has been to wake up easily and feel refreshed. My raw dood diet experiment being a rare exception.
I do sleep long enough (typically 7-8 hours during weekdays and 9 on weekends), so I am sure duration isn’t the issue. I just don’t feel as rested as I should in the morning. I didn’t know there was a technique to sleeping, but there must be! For added motivation to figure out this issue, I came across this article linking sleep and obesity .
“Writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Taheri said there was increasing evidence that shortened sleeping times result in metabolic changes that may contribute to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes and heart disease.”
This article focuses on the duration of sleep, but I would imagine the underlying cause is really the quality of the sleep. Could better sleep actually help you lose weight? It makes intuitive sense to me. When I am more rested I tend to:
- Not give in to impulses, relating to food and otherwise
- Have less of a desire for caffeine (which in turn makes me want to eat heavier food)
- Have more energy to exercise
I need to go to “sleep school”!
Out of curiosity, how often do you sleep every night? Weekedays vs weekend? Pls leave a comment on this post to let me know. Thanks!
I can get by on 6, ideally 7.15 is the best for me. If only 5 or 6 for three days in a row my immune systems gets low. I need to make up the sleep and make sure I eat light foods i.e. soup and raw fruits and veggies. Then I get my momentum back to normal.
The duration of my sleep doesn’t change from weekday to weekend, although I would really like to get back into a really good and rested sleep again.
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Hi Rick, I agree. I have friends who sleep 5-6 hours and are very fit and energetic. There are surely more factors in play than the study seems to suggest. Personally, I think sleep quality is what really matters NOT duration as touted by the study.
What makes sleep quality high? I have no idea…need to look into that!
Regardless, this study was intriguing to me. Sleep and sleep quality is something I’ve never really paid much attention to in my life. I’ll surely be paying more attention to it going forward. Will be exciting to see what the affect (if any) will be on my energy levels and health. At any case, I hope to grab back a few hours a day from sleep-time and spend on it on more productive endeavours (reading, writing, etc.).
Take care.
ravisraman
November 3, 2006 at 10:01 pm
I’m not overweight by any means. When I was younger I slept 4-5 hours a day. I’m up to 6-7 hours a day now. Weekends and weekdays don’t vary much.
I would want to see a lot more evidence before I admitted a causal relationship between the amount of sleep and weight problems. I can see the two being correlated, but not causal.
Rick Cockrum
November 3, 2006 at 9:15 pm