Did you know that you can do one thing that can surprisingly do wonders to your health?

Yes, if you guessed it already, I am talking about getting enough sleep. But some questions arise. How much sleep should we get each night? Do we have to avoid having less sleep or are we obliged to acquire lots of it?

So sleeping is one of the secrets to a healthy body and of course, it helps prevent weight gain too. So what does the science say about this?

Research Shows a Significant Link Between the Amount of Sleep and Your Health

A study from University Medical Centre in the Netherlands has confirmed a significant link between the amounts of sleep you get, insulin sensitivity, and the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

The objective of the research was to evauluate the cross-sectional association of sleep duration with insulin sensitivity and β-cell function to see its effects on insulin resistance.

The study featured 1319 healthy volunteers (mostly women) who had an average sleep duration of 7.3 hours.

They measured the data from the baseline measurements such as sleep and physical activity (using a single-axis accelerometer).

The study has shown that sleep duration is greatly associated with insulin sensitivity and β-cell function in a sex-specific manner in clinically healthy people.

They concluded that an average of 7 hours sleep is the right amount you actually need to stay healthy.

Sleep and Weight Loss

Getting quality sleep can provide tons of health benefits. But can it also promote weight loss? Well, the answer is a big YES!

There are two reasons why getting enough sleep can help you lose weight:

• Stable levels of glucose are essential to weight control
• Sleep can affect your hunger hormones to increase

Glucose Levels for Effective Weight Control Lets talk about your glucose levels first.

If you are a busy individual, you probably don't get at least 7 hours of sleeping time at night. If this sounds like you, then you need to apply changes on your lifestyle and start prioritizing your health issues because you are probably overweight right now! (considering that you are reading this article, right?)

According to the study mentioned above, sleeping less has been shown to influence your glucose metabolism negatively, which results to weight gain and much worse, the development of diabetes.

So getting the right amounts of sleep every night can truly help prevent sudden weight gain.

Sleep Can Affect Your Hunger Hormones Most experts agree that sleep is very improtant to health, well-being and your weight saying that it is equivalent to diet and exercise.

First off, the natural and obvious bad effects of sleep deprivation is a very lazy attitude, especially to physical activities such as exercise. As you know, less exercise means weight gain.

Next is your hunger hormones. Yes, being short on sleep can also shake up your body hormones, especially the ones that controls your food cravings. So if you are not getting enough sleep, you are reving up your body's weight gain engine.

Insufficient sleep affects your hunger and fullness hormones - ghrelin and leptin.

Ghrelin sends signals to your brain that it is time to eat and when you are sleep-deprived, chances are your body produce more ghrelin hormones. This results to excessive eating patterns within the day.

Leptin on the other hand, triggers your brain to skip eating as you feel fuller. When you don't get enough sleep, leptin increases dramatically which causes you to eat more.

Eating more, means tremendous weight gain!

Practical Tips to Help You Get Enough Sleep

In order to stay healthy, you need to make a lot of adjustments especially at night. Try these practical approaches that will help you get at least 7 hours of sleep each night.

• Skip your late night bad habits (binge drinking of alcohol beverages, etc.)
• Stay away from your computer, smart phone and television (remove that pokemonGo app will you)
• Use your bedroom for sleep and sex (sex promotes healthy sleeping patterns)
• Some people take a warm bath before bedtime, you can do this too
• Turn out the lights, pitch black room is proven to increase sleep quality
• Don't eat heavy meals before bedtime
• Take dietary supplements that promotes weight loss and quality sleep, such the one featured on Popular Diet Pills.

Conclusion

Not enough sleep can make your body sluggish, hampers your metabolism, affects your glucose levels and your body hormones, all of which contributes to weight gain.

So simply adding some quality hours on your sleeping patterns can do great things not just on your weight loss regimen, but to your overall health as well.

References:
https://press.endocrine.org/doi/10.1210/jc.2016-1045
https://www.webmd.com/diet/sleep-and-weight-loss#1