Hello and welcome back to Sleep Hacks. I'm Alexa and today I'm going to talk to you about how your quality of sleep can affect your weight loss and ability to maintain a healthy weight.
Let's face it, good sleep is good for everything, and one third of Americans just aren't getting it, which means that one third of Americans are also experiencing the negative side effects of sleep deprivation including unhealthy weight gain. A majority of us need about seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Of course, one off night won't necessarily hurt you in the long run but after just four days of poor sleep, your body will begin to regularly overproduce Cortisol, the stress hormone. What does this hormone spike mean? Well, that means that your body is telling you to continue to store energy which translates to storing fat.
Unfortunately, when you're lacking sleep this consistently, this means that whether or not your diet or lifestyle are conducive to weight loss, you're still going to experience rapid weight gain. When both Cortisol and another hormone Ghrelin, the hormone that tells your brain when you are hungry or have an appetite, are increased from adequate sleep, you're a lot more likely to make poor food decisions and eat in excess. It definitely makes sense to me because I know that when I'm my most tired, I end up craving fried things, bread things, and sweet things. Not the best to keep you going throughout the day.
These symptoms can come back around full circle and end up causing obstructive sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea essentially means that your throat muscles relax too much when you're sleeping causing extreme snoring or even feelings of choking and coughing during sleep, which limits your quality of sleep. And if you still aren't on board with the minimum seven hours per night post taco, food coma, Netflix binge won't be able to do you any good when you're lacking on the sleep front still. Your resting metabolism could slow down by 15% if your body doesn't have the energy to metabolize outside of physical activity.
So whether you're on a weight loss journey or just trying get your best rest of power you through the day, keep in mind how important those seven to nine hours are for your overall health.
Thanks for tuning in to find out how your sleep habits can affect your weight. If you liked this video, give us a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel to stay up to date on all things Sleep Hacks. See you next time and sleep well.
