Sleep Deprivation Leads to Weight Gain

People from all areas of the globe, especially in America, are sleeping less. This lack of sleep mentality has pervaded the American society and seems to be getting worse. While we may accomplish more tasks on our "to-do" list, we may be adding more pounds to our waistline as a result.

A person's weight is affected by hormone production. Two hormones in particular are responsible for stimulating and controlling appetite. Ghrelin is the hormone responsible for stimulating your appetite while leptin tells your brain that your body is full and does not need any more food.

When you don't sleep enough your ghrelin and leptin hormones are out of balance. They don't function properly. Lack of sleep causes the levels of the ghrelin hormone to increase in your system. This causes you to feel hungry to a much greater extent.

Plus, when you do eat it will take you longer to feel full and satisfied. This is due to the fact that the amount of leptin hormone in your system has decreased. This wreaks havoc on your waistline as you eat more and more to feel full.

Don't think that your hormones have a great effect on the size of your pants? Think about this: there is a link between obesity and lack of sleep. This link is not a nice one. In fact, the link has been found to pair together obesity and lack of sleep in Americans. This link was found by Standford University and the University of Wisconsin.

Now some people might be tempted to conclude that being up longer should mean that you are burning more calories. While this is true, the urge to snack and eat something during the hours that we should be in bed is greater because of the increased production of ghrelin. Plus, since we consume more due to decreased levels of leptin, the calories burned by being awake are more than replenished by the food we eat.

Sleeping is a better option also because we burn 60-65% of all calories while we are getting shut eye. Since the smaller majority of calories are burned while awake we should get to bed. Note: There are exceptions to this rule.

There is a disastrous majority of overweight Americans today. Obliviously, current diet and exercise programs are not being followed currently. An easy way to help curb a burgeoning waistline is to focus on your sleep time. Try sleeping more to affect your ghrelina and leptin hormones positively. Get comfortable and get some sleep for a trimmer you!

It is very possible that the reason why so many of us fail with our New Year's Resolutions to lose weight is because we continue to not get enough sleep night after night. If you are having trouble seeing results from your diet, ask yourself if you are getting enough sleep and find a way to get more. You will not only feel more refreshed, you may also feel slimmer in the process!

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