Getting a full night of good sleep is a key to good health. One of sleep’s greatest gifts is hormone balancing. Once we get below 7 hours of sleep a night, we are automatically at increased risk for diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, depression, and obesity.

Slow waves = better metabolism. That deep, dreamless, slow-wave sleep that we fall into about three or four times a night may actually regulate our metabolism, according to some researchers. This stage of sleep starts about an hour after we fall asleep, and during that time we release growth hormone, which prompts the body to burn stored fat. As we age, we get less time in this stage – perhaps only 5-10 percent of our sleep time. Compare that to the 20 percent we get when we’re young, and it’s clear why we may feel shortchanged.

If we have just two nights of bad sleep, our hormones start to rebel. Leptin, which manages our satiety (fullness, satisfaction), will be reduced by 20 percent. Ghrelin, which manages our hunger, can be increased up to 30 percent. In two crappy nights, we get hungrier and we don’t feel as satisfied by what we’ve eaten. For most of us, that leads to snacking or overeating.

Add one more night of bad sleep, and we become 25 percent less sensitive to insulin. It’s the same change in insulin resistance as if we instantly gained 25 extra pounds.

Do yourself a big favor. Stop those fat-storage hormones and green-light the fat-burning hormones. Help your body stay healthy and drop weight by getting at least seven hours of sleep a night!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Articles - Ten Steps and THM Basics, Sleep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.