WEIGHT GAIN
Being short on sleep can really affect your weight. While you weren't sleeping, your body cooked up a perfect recipe for weight gain. When you’re short on sleep, it’s easy to take an extra-large latte to get you moving. You might be tempted to skip exercise (too tired), get fast food for dinner, and then turn in late because you’re uncomfortably full.If this happens a few times each year, no problem. Trouble is, more than a third of people aren't getting enough sleep on a regular basis. Yet experts agree that getting enough shut eye is as important to health, well-being, and your weight as are diet and exercise.
Skimping on sleep sets your brain up to make bad decisions. It dulls activity in the brain’s frontal lobe, the locus of decision-making and impulse control. So, it’s a little like being drunk. You don’t have the mental clarity to make good decisions. Plus, when you’re overtired, your brain's reward centers rev up, looking for something that feels good. So, while you might be able to squash comfort food cravings when you’re well-rested, your sleep-deprived brain may have trouble saying no to a second slice of cake.
METABOLISM
Sleep is like nutrition for the brain. Most people need between 7 and 9 hours each night. Get less than that, and your body will react in ways that lead even the most determined dieter straight to crap food. Too little sleep triggers a cortisol spike. This stress hormone signals your body to conserve energy to fuel your waking hours.
Translation: You’re more apt to hang on to fat.
Sleep deprivation makes you “metabolically groggy," University of Chicago researchers say. Within just 4 days of insufficient sleep, your body’s ability to process insulin -- a hormone needed to change sugar, starches, and other food into energy -- goes awry. Insulin sensitivity, the researchers found, dropped by more than 30%. Here’s why that’s bad: When your body doesn't respond properly to insulin, your body has trouble processing fats from your bloodstream, so it ends up storing them as fat. So, it’s not so much that if you sleep, you’ll lose weight, but that too little sleep hampers your metabolism and contributes to weight gain.
SLEEP AND EXERCISE RECOVERY
Sleep has a significant impact on muscle recovery. Sure, we know the importance of sleep and that if you don’t get enough of it, you’re not going to feel rested in the morning, and your muscles will not recover properly. Aside from being groggy the next day, another pitfall of not getting enough quality sleep is that it affects your efforts in the gym. While you may be able to ‘function just fine’, on a few hours of sleep, doing so still shortchanges your body composition goals. Sleeping for 7-9 hours per night is crucial, especially if you are looking to change body composition, increase muscle mass and/or if you want to be ready for your personal training session the next day. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release. If you want to grow or lean out, stop procrastinating and get to sleep!
TOP TIPS TO GET A GOOD NIGHTS SLEEP
1.Get yourself into a sleep routine, if you have kids then the family need to be in on it too…. Time to calm and slow things down, go to bed at the same time every night, tough yes but this is HUGELY important in getting into a bedtime rhythm.
2.Absolutely no coffee tea or booze after 5pm these are all stimulants that will interrupt your sleep and keep you awake. Don’t even think to say, yes but I can drink tea at 9pm at night it doesn’t affect me, as it will, and it does so ditch it…
3.Stop looking at your bloody phone and leave it in another room when you go to bed. Find a time that you say after 8:30 for example my phone goes on charge and I leave it in the kitchen, when I go to bed I will unplug it. Blue light before bed will interrupt your sleep.
4.Soft lights at night, so use lamps etc. and try to avoid all bright lights on in the house especially after say 7pm.
5.At night use nightlights if you need to go to the bathroom. If you get up to go to the loo and put the light on your brain thinks its morning and you can find it tricky to get back to sleep.
6.If you have a TV in your bedroom then get rid of it or don’t watch it in bed in the evening. Your mind needs to know that the bedroom is for sleeping (yes ok we don’t need any puns here) but your brain doesn’t need the stimulants again of blue light etc.
7.TV, speaking of which…. If you are watching something like Killing Eve or an action movie then before you go to bed switch to another program say a documentary to calm the brain and switch off from the stimulants of the film…Start to get ready for bed!!
8.Sleep with a window open so air can circulate. The best sleep comes from a cool room so ditch the heating and heavy PJ’s too…Cool is king, keep cool and you will sleep better.
9.A warm bath around 2 hrs. before you go to bed has been proven to improve sleep by up to 40%...Not too hot and only soak for around 10 mins or so will set you right. Showers work just the same.
10.Get a memory foam mattress they are a god send and good pillows, don’t underestimate a good pillow. I use Latexco they are just brilliant they are used by Deceuninck-Quickstep Cycling Team, although I only realized that after I bought them. I have been known to take pillows with me when I go away…sad I know but there is a reason why!!