The Importance of Sleep for Weight Management & Longevity

As adults, we need about seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Unfortunately, 35.2% of Americans say they sleep fewer than seven hours a night. Not many people realize that neglecting to get enough sleep could hurt their weight management goals, though.

It is also putting you on the fast track to losing muscle and advanced aging.

How exactly does sleep impact weight loss? Read on to find out!

After reading this guide, you can determine if it’s time to get help to improve your sleep. Discover the connection between weight loss, longevity and sleep today.

Boost Your Metabolism

Getting enough sleep could help jumpstart your metabolism. Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is how many calories your body burns while at rest. Sleep duration affects your RMR, as well as your weight, height, age, and muscle mass. 

Without enough sleep, your RMR could decrease. However, you can bring your RMR back up to its baseline if you get proper sleep after a difficult night. 

Neglecting to get enough sleep can suppress fat oxidation (the breakdown of fat cells into usable energy). Poor sleep quality could also decrease muscle synthesis. Recovery time for our muscles, brain and cells become a critical process as we age.  If we give our body enough time to recover from the day,  it will regulate blood sugar, reduce cortisol (stress hormone) and give our muscles time to repair and rebuild especially when we are doing resistance training, another pillar of longevity. 

Enhanced Physical Activity

Neglecting to get enough sleep can lower your energy levels, impacting your ability to work out. Meanwhile, a lack of physical activity could worsen your sleep quality. 

A lack of sleep can also cause daytime fatigue. You might feel less motivated to work out and more motivated to lounge or relax.

Neglecting to get enough sleep can also affect athletic performance by affecting your:

  • Muscle power
  • Endurance
  • Problem-solving skills
  • Reaction times
  • Fine motor skills

Your ability to recover after an intense workout could diminish, too. Your body needs rest in order to build muscle!

If you’re interested in safe weight loss and gaining muscle this year, you need sleep!  Preventing muscle loss and ideally gaining muscle is one of the biggest predictors of healthy aging resulting in a longer and healthier life.

Avoid Weight Gain

If you get fewer than six or seven hours of sleep, you’re getting short sleep. Unfortunately, short sleep is linked to a higher body mass index (BMI), as well as weight gain. 

There’s a 41% increased obesity risk for adults who sleep fewer than seven hours every night. In adults who sleep seven to nine hours a night, sleep wasn’t a factor in obesity.

Short sleep durations could also lead to a great weight circumference, which indicates an accumulation of belly fat.  Increased belly fat is also a major contributor to accelerated aging due to its impact on the metabolism, hormones and inflammation.

With every additional hour of sleep you get, your BMI score could decrease.   Just imagine – you can sleep your unhealthy fat away.

Sleep is only one factor in the development of obesity. However, short sleep durations could also negatively affect hunger levels. You could feel the need to consume more calories from high-sugar and high-fat foods if you’re not getting enough sleep.

The failure to get enough sleep could affect your natural hunger hormone levels. Your ghrelin levels will increase, which can make you feel hungry. Your leptin levels, which help you feel full, can drop as well.

Your stomach releases the hormone ghrelin to signal hunger within the brain. Before you eat, levels are high, decreasing after you eat. Fat cells release the hormone leptin, which suppresses hunger and tells the brain you’re full.

Neglecting to get enough sleep could have an impact on the sympathetic nervous system as well. Your cortisol levels (the hormone related to stress) can increase as a result.

Low sleep can also suppress insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), which is linked to greater fat storage. 

If you’re struggling with safe weight loss, you might want to improve your sleep health. 

Make Better Food Choices

Sleep deprivation could affect your ability to make healthy food choices.

Neglecting to get enough sleep each night alters the way your brain works. It could affect your decision-making, impacting your ability to make healthy choices. You might notice it’s more difficult to resist fatty foods, too. 

In fact, the reward centers of the brain are more stimulated by food if you’re not getting enough sleep. A poor night’s sleep could trick your brain into thinking unhealthy foods are more rewarding than healthy alternatives. You’ll have a more difficult time practicing self-control if you’re not getting enough sleep.

Neglecting to get enough sleep each night could not only hinder your ability to  lose or manage your weight now but sleep is also one of the 6  key pillars impacting how quickly you are aging.  

Curious to see if you’re on track for a longer, more vibrant life or if hidden habits are accelerating your aging process and how to turn it around?  

Then Complete this free, Longevity & Vitality Quotient (LVQ) self-assessment and it will give you your overall LVQ score plus individual scores for each of  the 6 key drivers impacting your current wellbeing, lifespan and future vitality. 

Based upon your scores you will also receive recommendations for the areas that most need attention, including sleep, empowering you to take the most effective steps towards a healthier you for decades to come.