Why is sleep good for your waistline?
Researchers at the University of California recently published its results from a study looking at the correlation between weight gain and sleep.
While the study was small, and further research is necessary to reach a conclusive answer, the results were interesting and worth considering. It suggests that the more you sleep, the greater the chance you have of losing weight. Is it possible to sleep your way into a smaller dress size?
The study showed that when your brain is tired it is more likely to crave fatty or sugary food than when it is well rested. It is also less likely to be able to resist temptation. If you are rising each day after a night of less than adequate sleep, then chances are much higher that you will feast upon ‘junk food.’ This is, of course, the quickest and easiest way to pile on the pounds.
It seems that weight gain problems have become paramount in recent years. Simultaneously, sleep deprivation has become an increasingly common cry. When you think back to your grandmother’s generation, they may seem to have spent much of their time slumbering, but this could be the secret behind their slimmer waistband.
Few people these days realise how much sleep they actually need. It is difficult to put an exact number on the hours you should sleep each night, but for the majority of the population it is a figure far from what it tends to ‘get by on.’ Most sleep experts believe that the average adult should spend between seven and a half and nine hours kipping each night, just as we did a century ago.
So it would seem that we have found yet another reason which allows us to promote sleep. Sleep is, as Alfred Vogel said, ‘the remedy which we cannot do without,’ and the more research that is done around it, the more evidence there is to prove this statement. So instead of lamenting over meal plans and counting calories, perhaps what you need to do is bed down for the night…
