Sleep Helps in Weight Loss, Recovery, and Growth

Sleep is just as important of a factor in being healthy as diet and exercise are. Studies show that close to 30% of people get fewer than six hours of sleep per night on average, and the recommended amount for everyone is eight hours per night.

A lack of sleep can also increase the appetite. This is because sleep, or lack thereof, impacts two hunger hormones known as leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is a hormone that is released from the fat cells and it suppresses the hunger feelings and sends fullness signals to the brain. Ghrelin is a hormone found in the stomach, prompting the stomach to signal the brain of hunger. When your body is sleep deprived, it generates higher levels of ghrelin and lower levels of leptin, which increases your appetite, urging you to eat more. In addition to these hormones working improperly, when your body is sleep deprived it increases the amount of cortisol production, which is a stress hormone and it too, increases your appetite. 

Energy levels are lowered due to sleep deprivation as well, resulting in lack of energy and motivation to exercise. Or, if you do maintain an exercise routine, you may find yourself getting tired faster.  Regardless, a lack of sleep causes your body to reduce the production of the growth hormone, the natural fat burning and anti-aging hormone. It is this hormone that assists your body in recovery and rejuvenation after a workout. Consider how you feel when you didn’t get enough sleep. Most likely you woke up feeling groggy, sluggish and even grumpy or confused. Your fat cells suffer from sleep deprivation as well because of the reduction of those necessary hormones. Eventually, that will affect insulin functioning as well, which if very bad.

Proper insulin function allows fat cells to remove the lipids and fatty acids from the blood stream rather than storing them; but when the insulin is not properly functioning then you’re likely to become insulin resistant. This causes fat, or lipids, to continuously circulate within your blood which signals your body to produce more insulin. That excess insulin must do something, so it stores the fat in your liver and other places that cause you to become overweight and potentially develop diabetes or other diseases.

The entire makeup of the human body directly relates to another part. That is why balance in everything is so important.