According to the Harvard Medical School, the lack of enough good quality sleep can wreck your health and your happiness.
Any of the common sleeping disorders can cause what I call Fat Sleeping. That simply means that you are gaining weight, because you have a sleeping disorder. I’ll say more on that very shortly.
First, let me say that I think that everyone should he as happy as possible. All day, every day!
However, being physically sick, or feeling anxious or depressed, is going to put a big dent in your happiness quota.
How Common Sleeping Disorders Cause Bulging Guts Across America
Common sleeping disorders can make you fat and even obese.
A lack of sleep will make you eat more, because your hormones are making you hungry all of the time.
Cut your appetite and lose weight by sleeping more.
Studies have shown that people who regularly sleep 8 hours a night have the lowest Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is a measurement of how much fat you have.
So, less than 8 hours sleep equals more fat.
Why?
First of all, you must understand that we are talking about sleeping eight hours every night. Not just sleeping eight hours now and then.
While you’re asleep, you are unconscious, but your body isn’t. It’s working hard to keep you healthy.
Common Sleeping Disorders Cause Wacky Hormones
Your body only releases certain hormones during sleep. So, if you aren’t sleeping enough, you aren’t getting the hormones you need to be healthy.
Your body produces many hormones, and if they aren’t properly balanced you’re going to get wacky results. You guessed it, lack of sleep equals wacky health.
Leptin is a hormone that tells your brain “Hey, you’ve had enough, stop eating”. However, if you haven’t had enough sleep, the hormone called ghrelin tells your brain “Hey, we’re starving down here, eat another donut”.
Now that you just ate more carbohydrates and sugar (donuts), your body doesn’t have enough of the insulin hormone to process that food, because you didn’t get enough sleep. That means you are likely to gain weight (fat storage) and to develop type 2 diabetes.
Are you starting to see the connection here between sleep and health?
We Sleep Nearly 1/3rd Of Our Lives, So Sleep Must Be Important!
Our body is the most magnificent creation on earth. However, since we live in our bodies 24 hours, 7 days a week, we tend to overlook that fact.
We take our body for granted, not realizing that our body is constantly telling us what’s good for us and what isn’t.
If sleep wasn’t important, we wouldn’t be doing it!
Many people today, and since ancient times, have benefited from a biphasic sleep pattern.
If your sleep cycle isn’t getting you enough sleep, you could be suffering from Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). I just bought this full spectrum lamp to keep my circadian clock tuned up to help me sleep better.
Are You “Stressed Out” About Being Stressed Out?
Stress equals fat.
Cortisol is the hormone that your body produces to deal with stress. Either mental stress or physical stress.
In this case, less sleep equals more cortisol hormone being created. Cortisol is really good at storing belly fat. So, the more stress you have in your life, the harder it’s going to be to keep a thin waist.
Anxiety is another form of stress. So, now you’re getting hit with a double whammy.
Need I say, that getting more sleep is a good step toward reducing stress and anxiety?
Not only reducing anxiety, but also mental exhaustion and depression can be lessened by getting at least 6 hours of sleep per night. Eight hours sleep is much better than six hours. However, nine hours sleep is too much.
Is Sleep Apnea Making You Fat?
Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder where you actually stop breathing while asleep. It only lasts a very short time, because you very briefly wake up, and return to sleeping.
You would think, that you would notice that you woke up, but you would be wrong.
The sleep apnea sleeping disorder can make you wake up twelve times an hour. You could even be waking up every two minutes due to sleep apnea.
What this means, is that you never get any deep sleep. So, you never get the release of the hormones that your body must have to be healthy.
In this case, you could be in bed for eight hours, but wake up tired, irritable and fat.
This is because your body wasn’t able to produce the Leptin hormone that is responsible for telling you when you have eaten enough food. In other words, you over eat, because you don’t feel full.
I’m sure you know this, but the best way to lose weight is to eat less food. Seems simple enough, but your body is telling you to eat more food. That hungry feeling is pretty hard to ignore. So, you keep shoveling the food in.
As I said before, the lack of sleep means a lack of Leptin to tell you to stop eating. At the same time, the ghrelin hormone is telling you that you are starving.
Your bed partner says you snore a lot, and snore loudly too?
Does your bed partner notice that you stop breathing?
Do you wake up gasping for air?
Have a hard time staying asleep?
Do you wake up with a headache?
Is your mouth dry when you wake up in the morning?
If you have these symptoms of sleep apnea, go see your doctor.
Another symptom of long-term sleep apnea is high blood pressure. That’s because your blood pressure spikes upwards when you stop breathing.
When your breath stops, the amount of oxygen in your blood drops also. It’s the lack of oxygen that makes your blood pressure increase. Over time the blood pressure doesn’t just spike upwards, it stays up.
Fat Sleeping & Common Sleeping Disorders Conclusion
The lack of sleep from any cause is a sleeping disorder that can cause you to gain unwanted weight. The main culprit is the lack of hormones being produced, because you are not sleeping enough.
The production of the Leptin hormone and the reduction of the ghrelin hormone during sleep are necessary to prevent the creation of stored fat due to over eating.
Do you have an enlarged prostate or a weak bladder that makes you get up at night? That isn’t thought of as being a sleeping disorder, but it can have the same effect.
New mattresses that are too firm, and old mattresses that are too soft or sagging, cause many back aches and pains. The best solution is a latex mattress topper.
It’s hard enough to get a good night’s sleep in our modern society, but if you are pregnant you need extra help sleeping. Check out these full body pillows.
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