Let’s Talk About Sleep Deprivation
Hey there. Welcome to a Healthy Conversation. Well today I’m back in the office, so you’re invited into my office. No John he’s not here, he’s not able to be here. But that’s okay because what I want to talk to you about today is something that most of us have no clue is keeping us from losing weight, and even causing us unexplained weight gain. And it’s sleep deprivation.
Now here’s the thing, if you have trouble falling asleep at night, if you wake up several times a night or if you wake up and can’t go back to sleep, any one of those three qualifies as sleep deprivation. And sleep deprivation is proven to make us gain weight easier or make it impossible to lose weight.
The Study
Let me explain what was learned. In a nurse’s health study that was done we found out that those who sleep five or six hours or less, well 15% of them were more overweight or even obese or even diabetic sooner, quicker, or faster than those who got seven hours or more. Now the thing is healthy sleep really still is at that eight, nine-hour level. Now I know you may be going whatever, you’re kidding me. You have no idea how busy my life is. The thing is to start with quality sleep.
There’s another stat you need to be aware of, 30% of that group, 30% of that group gained 30 pounds over a 10 to 15 year period. Now that’s a lot of weight and they did nothing different than the controlled group. So the bottom line is those who got five to six hours of sleep or less compared to those with seven or more were gaining weight and the other group wasn’t gaining weight, and the only variable was sleep.
Three Reasons
Let’s talk about why that might be. Three reasons really. If you are getting less sleep you’re more tired. And if you’re more tired during the day you may not feel like exercising. You actually may feel weaker, you may feel without energy, and the last thing you want to do is exercise, so people getting less sleep are most likely to be getting less exercise.
You may be eating more if you’re getting less sleep, only because you’re up more hours, but also because you’re feeling fatigued, you’re feeling drained, and those are the couple of the reasons that we reach for comfort foods and that we eat just without even thinking.
So there are two reasons. But the other reason and maybe the biggest reason that sleep deprivation can cause us to be more overweight is because sleep deprivation is totally tied into hormone imbalance. If you’re not sleeping well you could be causing hormones to be imbalance, which is going to cause overweight. It also goes in the other direction, if you’ve got hormone imbalance that’s going to cause you to not sleep well, which is going to cause overweight. So you see you’ve got this vicious cycle going on.
What’s Next?
What you want to do is learn how to sleep better, sleep longer, sleep more soundly and you’re going to be able to lose the weight. Over the next several weeks we’re going to be talking about how to make that happen.
We’re going to be talking about what you need to do to get into a relaxed state as you’re going into your sleep patterns at night, about the foods that actually can help you sleep and the ones that are causing you to stay awake and about exercise, what kind, how, when. Again, that can help better sleep and that actually can keep you awake.
We’re going to talk about things like meditation, what to think and how to quiet your mind. And of course we’re going to talk about some of the different supplements along the way that will help you.
The bottom line is there are things you can do to get better sleep, to sleep longer, to be able to go to sleep immediately when you lay your head on the pillow, to not wakeup through the night or if you do wakeup to be able to rollover and go right back to sleep again.
When we nail this sleep deprivation monster, you’re going to find weight will begin to somewhat just fall off, because it’s that hormone imbalance, that sleep deprivation tie-in that’s probably causing your issue.
So make sure you reach out and ask us some questions. If you’re finding it difficult to sleep and you feel like that might be tied in, because we’re here for you.
Now I can’t do the funny thing I typically do with John and you guys get to see how we live on a day-to-day basis. But I can say I know he’s looking forward to seeing you next week. I’ll be talking to you about how to bring relaxation into the end of your day so that you can head into your sleep patterns more easily and have more quality sleep. And then you have no weight issue. We’ll talk to you next time. Thanks for watching.
