There are many studies that show the importance of sleep, but exactly how many hours you need to maximize your fat loss and health is up for debate.

For instance, a research group from Surrey University did a small sleep study on 26 people.  They were divided into 2 groups.  One group got less than 6 hours of sleep a night for one week and the other group got 10 hours of sleep a night for week.  And after one week, the group that slept for less than 6 hours a night showed altered gene functions.  More specifically the genes responsible for producing protein to repair the body and enhance metabolic processes were found to get deactivated.

Since your body requires a constant supply of proteins for repair, these findings suggest that long exposure to sleep deprivation may increase the risk of developing serious health problems.  In addition, lack of sleep was found to stop your genes that are responsible for boosting your metabolism.  Remember your biggest fat loss occurs during your sleep..especially if you’re doing short intense workouts that promote EPOC so deactivating genes essentially stops your fat loss.

At first glance the results of the study seem straight forward…sleep is important for optimizing health and maximizing fat loss.  So the more sleep you can get the better off you’ll be…right?  Not really…

The answer may not be so straight forward.  According to Dr. Kripke from UCSD who specializes in sleep research, more sleep may not be better.

A study conducted by the American Cancer Society as part of the Cancer Prevention Study collected data (age, diet, previous health problems, and risk factors like smoking) from 1.1 million people between 1982 - 1988.

Because of the enormous scale of the study, it took almost 2 decades to analyze the massive amount of data. And they were able to compare in detail, health risks associated with the exact number of hours of sleep per night.  And the results were pretty surprising.

The study showed, people that slept 7 hours per night had the best survival rate.  However, the people that slept 8 hours a night didn’t fair as well as initially thought.  In fact, they had a lower survival rate than the people that slept 5 or 6 hours a night.

And here’s the real kicker, people that slept 10 hours a night had the worst survival rate…even worse than people that slept for as little as 3 hours a night!

Now granted this study is looking at the mortality rate, and not specifically fat loss… the correlation between having optimal health and maximizing fat loss is unquestionable.  So it’s pretty safe to assume that group with the highest survival rate also had optimum health and metabolic function, compared to all the other groups.

Now, I’m not saying that you should set your alarm clock so you get exactly 7 hours of sleep a night to maximize your health and fat loss.  BUT these studies strongly indicate that… much like working out… quality of sleep is much more important than the quantity of sleep.

So if you’re having trouble getting quality sleep here are a few simple but effective sleeping tips you can try:

1. This may be the most important.  Make sure that you’re getting enough magnesium in your diet!  Did you know that a whopping 80% of the population is deficient in this mineral and it’s one of the biggest reasons for low sleep quality?  If you suspect that you’re deficient of magnesium, it’s definitely worth getting it checked.  If you are deficient in magnesium, you’ll want to take a high quality magnesium supplement, since it’s difficult to get it from food alone.

2. If you’re on a low carb diet eating a little fat before bed can help you fall asleep faster and have a more restful night.  Try getting a teaspoon of MCT oil or a tablespoon of coconut butter or almond butter either with your last meal or snack before you sleep.

3. A tablespoon of raw honey can also help if you’re on a low carb diet and can’t sleep.

4. A cup of warm (non-caffeinated) drink can help calm you down and help you sleep.  I recommend an herbal tea like chamomile tea.

5. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that really calms you down and helps you sleep.  It’s especially good if you end up staying up late working or doing something that’s stimulating before going to sleep.

6. Try sleeping in the dark without any ambient light.  The darker the better, especially for quality deep (REM) sleep.

7. If possible, try and get to bed before 11pm so that you can take advantage of the melatonin hormone which peaks at around 11pm.  Melatonin helps you fall asleep faster and get a better quality of sleep.

Hopefully some of these tips will help you get some quality shut eye, so you can optimize your metabolism to increase fat loss and improve your overall health.