Did you know? Sleep can affect weight loss

Does sleep affect weight loss? This is an important question, especially if you are dieting and exercising to lose weight. Good sleep is just as important as exercise and fueling our bodies because it gives us time to rest and reset.

Professionals say we should be getting an average of 6 to 8 hours of sleep a night, but for many of us, stressful jobs, families and even technology mean we're not getting that much shut-eye each night. When we don't get enough sleep, it affects how we function and, ultimately, our eating habits. But can we cut calories while we sleep? And how does skipping naps ultimately affect our appetite?

NO. 1Does sleep affect weight loss?

Believe it or not, we actually burn calories while we sleep - the amount we burn varies, of course, just as we do when we're awake. Most people burn an average of 50 calories per hour while they sleep, but the exact amount depends on our individual basal metabolic rate (BMR) - and of course, the more we sleep, the more calories we burn. So, someone who averages only five hours of sleep a night is more likely to burn fewer calories than someone who typically sleeps eight hours a night. That's why it's important to learn how to sleep longer if you don't typically get enough sleep.

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It's sleep deprivation that can affect our efforts to lose weight, as Flo Seabright, R.O.C., nutritionist and founder of the FBF Collective, told Live Science: "Lack of sleep can affect food choices, whether it's because sticking to a 'normal' healthy, balanced diet is harder when you're sleep deprived, or because we choose foods we think will give us more energy, like sugary or sweet foods, which can make it harder to eat."

Seabright also says that when it comes to sleep, quality is more important than quantity: “Good quality sleep is key for your body to function optimally and is an important way for your body to recover and perform key biological processes, such as hormone regulation — including those related to hunger, appetite and satiety.”

NO. 2 Does sleep affect weight loss: Lack of sleep and loss of appetite

Hormones play an important role in regulating or increasing appetite – for example, most of us feel hungrier than usual when we’ve had a drink the night before, often because our sleep quality has been poor and our hormones are disrupted.

Research from PLos Med shows that when two hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin, are affected and sleep is disrupted, it can change how much we eat or how much we crave food. Ghrelin is a hormone that helps tell you you’re hungry and is released when you’re empty, while Leptin helps suppress hunger and tells the brain when we’re hungry.

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However, Seabright says, "Sleep is key to our bodies regulating these hormones. When the body is not regulating these hormones properly, the result can be increased hunger and fullness, which makes it more difficult to stick to an optimal nutritional diet."

In fact, a study of more than 1,000 people looking at these two hormones found that participants who slept shorter hours had higher (14.9%) levels of ghrelin and lower (15.5%) levels of leptin than those who slept better. Although participants who slept shorter hours per night also had higher BMI levels.

"When we're sleep deprived, the 'hunger hormone' ghrelin and the 'satiety hormone' leptin become imbalanced, leading to increased hunger and decreased fullness throughout the day," Seabright explains, "Not only do you feel hungrier, but you're less likely to recognize when you're full!"

NO. 3 Will sleep affect weight loss: Does sleeping naked help lose weight?

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Whether you prefer to slip into your favorite pajamas, or something less restrictive, studies show that sleeping naked does have a ton of benefits for weight loss. You may want to adjust to different layers, especially in the winter, but studies show that the lower your body temperature is when you sleep, the better for weight loss.

Research shows that our body temperature not only affects our sleep quality, but also our metabolic response. A study by the National Institutes of Health studied a group of people in a colder environment for more than a month and found that it accelerated their metabolism and burned brown fat in an effort to keep them warm while they slept.

The job of brown fat (also known as adipose tissue) is to help you stay warm when you're cold - it activates when your body temperature reaches a certain temperature, so it burns more easily when you're cold.

Source | LiveScience "How does sleep affect weight loss?"

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