Loss weight with 5 simple sleep tricks

Some of you have ever tried for dieting to loss weight but after the relevant time you found that their is no significant decline in your weighing scale. Then you became more depressed and try to put yourself in crash diet mode which then worsen your health. 

This is not acceptable at all, and I suggest that don’t go only for hard diet. If you remember about those days of dieting, I think you may recall that you haven’t ‘slept’ well most of the time.

Its very true that, lac of good night sleep can actually have an effect on your weight as well as health.

Expert opinion is that enough sleep is very important to your mind, health, well-being, and weight loss programme.

In my previous article I have suggests some food and lifestyle hacks to loose weight, but this article brings you the process of loosing the extra fats by proper long sleep.

               Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

A good night’s sleep to ditch weight gain and obesity

Imagine if you are on a sleep deprivation and cravings for energy then you just picked up any junk food or chips or anything unhealthy food to improve your mood as well. But it can raise your weight very fast and push you a step ahead toward obesity.

It is proved that poor sleep is directly linked to weight gain and obesity by 55% in adults [1].

A long study was carried out for 16 years with 60,000 non-obese nurses which showed those nurses who slept only five or less hours per night were 15% more likely to be obese than those nurses who slept at least seven hours or more per night [2].

Beside this, if you can’t get proper sleep it can alter your brain’s working pattern which in turn push you to pick up the wrong food instead of the healthy one [4].

Poor sleep will affect the frontal lobe efficacy of your brain which provide you the self control and decision making capability [5].

Research showed that sleep deprivation make you to choose high calorie foods. According to Brondel et al. (2010), there was 22% increase of calorie intake and double the fat intake in case of people who got only 4 hours of sleep instead of 8 hours of sleep. They eat 559 more calories (Kcal) in a sleep deprived day.

So, a good night sleep helps you to stop gaining weight by cutting down your bad calorie intake and protect you from getting obese.     

"Sleep is better than any relationship for your health"- ConSCIENCE. 

Enough sleep to decrease your appetite

Get enough sleep to decrease your all time cravings for food. Research suggests that sleep deprived persons feel increased appetite than the person with enough shut-eyes.

Personally I feel that it is true, because when I wake up very early in the morning, i.e. if I don’t get enough sleep, then, next day I feel much hunger than other days with enough sleep, and for that day I search the food many times and eat some unhealthy snacks as well.

The science behind it is that, their is an impact of our sleep pattern on two vital hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin.

Leptin is released from the fat cells and suppresses hunger and keeps you fuller for long time sending the signal to brain [6].

Ghrelin, the another hormone is released in the stomach and make you feel hungry by sending the signals to brain [7].

If you don’t give enough sleep to your body then your body can produce more ghrelin than leptin, consequently you feel hungry most of the time.   

A study showed among 1000 people that persons  who don’t get adequate sleep had 14.9% more ghrelin level and 15.5% lower leptin level than those who got long duration of sleep [8].

Another hormone cortisol is also found in high level in case of sleep deprived persons. It is a stress hormone and can increase your appetite as well [9].

If you go very late on bed then you feel hungry and it is the most possible to take snacks after dinner which a very bad habit for your health, and in maximum time you put on extra calories then.

I also had this habit during my hostel days, and I had a bad habit also to eat unhealthy junk food, but thank God to getting me out of there now.

I suggest you should not be a sleep deprived person any how.  

                         Photo by Sam K from Pexels

Long uninterrupted sleep to increase your resting metabolism rate (RMR) and physical activity

Resting metabolism rate is the number of calories are burn by your body at the complete rest. Research suggests that prolonged sleep can increase your RMR effectively [10].

A study has performed with 15 men who kept awake for 24 hours and after that significant low RMR was found compare to RMR measured after longer sleep night [11].

There are so many researches that proved that sleep can slow the metabolism. Beside the decreasing of RMR, poor sleep can decrease your physical activity also.

If you don’t get enough sleep then you may feel fatigue or unmotivated for exercise, or even you may collect some motivation from your inner self then you’ll get tired early during exercise and can’t do up to the mark.

If you are a athlete, then you have to possess prime focus in long night sleep, it can boost your athletic performance.

In a study, college basketball players became faster, accurate, more improved and athletic after getting 10 hours of good night sleep for 5 to 7 weeks [12].

So, don’t get disrupted sleep, try to get it more intense.

                   Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in dark to loose weight

Another trick is here. Don’t lit up the light of your bed room during sleep.

Yes, it can also make you obese. Strange to hear but, scientists of National Institute of Health has reported that if you switch on any artificial light or Television during night you can put on weight [13].

This type of weight gain is more common in case of women. They ran an experiment with 43,722 number of women of 35 to 74 years of age. They all followed normal lifestyle .

Experiment contains 4 parameters, i.e. they have to sleep with no lights, minimum power night light, light outside of the bedroom and television inside of the bed room for 5 years.

Results showed that there is 17% of those women who slept with light or television in their bed room has gained 5 kilograms or more weight than those women who slept with no lights. There was 33% chance to get obese.

Light can trigger the disturbance  of our hormonal activity and disrupts our circadian rhythm also.

Personally I don’t like to on light in my room, in any unavoidable circumstances I used eye mask, that’s totally a personal preference, not a weight management practice.

So, guys, try to sleep with a minimum light on.

                          Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Indulge yourself in adequate sleep

As you read in previous paragraph that proper sleep can get you well toned figure and healthy BMI. At least 7 to 8 hours of complete sleep is needed for your body to achieve those.

But in our busy schedule, most of us don’t sleep well. Many time we don’t even sleep after knowing the truth. Now the time to change the habit.

I suggests to build following habits from now for your well-being:

You should avoid caffeine or caffeinated drinks after 3 pm, or if you can’t control it, then please make sure that not to eat before bed. It is disruptive agent of a powerful sleep [14].

Drinks lots and lots of water throughout the day. You need to keep your body properly hydrated to have a good nap.

Make sure to have an early dinner at 8 pm or not to cross 9 pm. Very late dinner is also a troublesome agent for your sleep.

Drink a glass of milk every night before sleep or after one hour of dinner. Do practice it for immense benefit.

                            Photo by mikoto.raw from Pexels

Try to turn of your mobiles, tabs or laptops after 10 pm or 30 minutes to 1 hour before bed. All of you must be aware of the blue light of those gadgets that can hamper your sleep and has many side effects upon your body including your eye.

Those who have the blue light filter in their devices must keep on it, it may somehow protect your eyes to become fatigue throughout the day.

Even I have this bad habit to some extent till now, but, I’ll try to control it near future.

And lastly, don’t go for a late night exercise, it can stimulate your system

                        Eat right   Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Additional tips

If you’re a night owl by profession then your circadian rhythm must be disturbed along with your health.

You may be coming home in the morning and go straight to the bed and skipping breakfast. During meal time you must put on extra calorie and unhealthy snacks by which your health is getting deteriorated unnoticeably.

I suggest not to skip breakfast, do complete your food cycle. Don’t be based on two time meal per day.

Go for a protein rich breakfast and carry some protein and fibre rich snacks to office to avoid those junk food.

In your case you have to manage your health and weight by managing your food better.  

Wrapping up

Do follow a healthy sleep pattern, not only diet but, your good night’s sleep can maintain you in a healthy state of being.