Believe it or not, sleep plays a huge part in weight loss. Numerous studies have found a direct correlation between weight gain and lack of sleep.  Depriving yourself of adequate sleep can alter your hormones and make losing weight much more difficult than it should be.

“Sleep loss disrupts a complex and interwoven series of metabolic and hormonal processes and may be a contributing factor to obesity,” says John Winkelman, MD, PhD, medical director of the Sleep Health Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

The major hormones disrupted by sleep deficit are leptin, ghrelin, cortisol, insulin and growth hormone.  All of these hormones play a key role in weight loss and maintenance through controlling appetite, cravings and dictating metabolic rates of sugar and fat.

Here’s a brief summary of the role each hormone plays in your body and how lack of sleep can negatively affect you.

(1) The most significant hormone of all may be leptin.  Leptin is commonly known as the appetite suppressing hormone.  It’s found in the fat cells of your body and communicates with your brain, specifically your hypothalamus, which controls your hunger, core body temperature and other important metabolic functions. The mechanism of leptin is quite complicated and not completely understood, but research indicates that one key function of leptin is that it senses the size of fat cells and when it reaches a certain size it sends a signal to your brain to initiate fat metabolism.  So, in normal situations the amount of leptin in your body correlates to your hunger.  Lower leptin levels trigger hunger and higher leptin levels suppresses hunger.

Studies have indicated that lack of sleep is one way your leptin levels can drop.  Lower leptin levels causes you to get hungry, regardless of how many calories you’ve consumed.  And in addition it increases cravings for refined carbohydrate foods like baked goods, bread, pasta and sweets.  We already know that overconsumption of highly refined carbs can make your body more susceptible to becoming insulin resistant but it also has the same effect on leptin as well.  Especially dangerous are highly refined sugars such as high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup has been shown to promote leptin resistance.  When your body becomes resistant to leptin, it causes you to overeat since your body needs more leptin before it sends a signal to your brain to suppress hunger.  And since leptin is produced from your fat cells, more fat cells are needed to produce more leptin, causing a vicious cycle of overfeeding and over accumulation of fat.  For this reason, obese people have a significantly higher level of leptin than normal.

(2) Ghrelin is another hormone that controls your appetite.  Similar to leptin, ghrelin is also produced outside of the brain, mostly in the stomach.  Before you eat it’s level increases and sends a signal that triggers hunger. After you finish eating the level drops which ceases your appetite.  Hence, controlling ghrelin levels can help control your appetite levels and aid in weight loss.  Believe it or not, one way to do is by getting enough sleep. Studies have found that lack of sleep increases ghrelin levels, making you hungrier and more susceptible to over eating.  Another way is to eat plenty of protein.

According to Dr. Karen Foster-Schubert of the U of Washington School of Medicine.  “Protein consumption resulted in the greatest suppression of ghrelin over a long period and, interestingly, consumption of carbohydrates resulted in strong ghrelin suppression initially, although subsequent ghrelin levels rebounded well above baseline.”

(3) Insulin is the hormone that controls your blood sugar levels by managing sugar metabolism.  A properly functioning insulin is vital for weight loss as well as achieving optimum health.  We’ve talked in length about the effects of high levels of insulin caused by insulin insensitivity, how it stimulates hunger, increases cravings for refined carbohydrates foods and increases fat accumulation…all leading to possible obesity, diabetes and even heart disease.  However, low levels of insulin can also cause negative effects, such as increased appetite, poor sugar metabolism and hypoglycemia.  Low levels of insulin can be brought on by sleep deprivation…although not severe…if repeated continually the large spikes and falls in your insulin can bring about insulin insensitivity. But this can easily be avoided by getting plenty of sleep as well.  

(4) Cortisol is a typically known as the “stress” hormone.  It’s produced in response to acute or chronic stress. It’s part of our survival mechanism and is vital in acute situations,  where your body needs to be ready and alert to protect yourself “fight” or escape “flight” from dangerous situations.  It does do by stimulating a cascade of metabolic processes needed in the fight or flight response.  Luckily for us, we aren’t faced with life or death situations anymore, but more often than not our stresses have become chronic in nature, like dealing with problems at work, financial situations, relationship issues etc.  In cases where   cortisol is constantly produced, it becomes detrimental to your health…and that includes weight gain.  Along with too much stress, not getting enough sleep, can also cause your cortisol levels to rise and result in increased fat deposition…especially around your belly.

(5) Growth Hormone, as the name suggests, plays a key role in the “development” of muscles and bones.  It also helps control protein, fat and carbohydrate metabolism.  It helps breakdown protein into amino acids required to build lean muscles.  It also helps release stored fat to be utilized for energy and plays a supporting role in the complex metabolic process of glucose.  But for all intent and purposes growth hormone plays a major role in building muscle and burning fat.  Having sufficient amounts of growth hormone greatly enhances your body’s ability to gain lean muscle while burn fat.  There are many factors that influence levels of growth hormone including stress, exercise and nutrition as well as sleep.  Not getting adequate amounts of sleep can rob you of precious growth hormone and make losing fat much more difficult.

So, inorder to keep your hormones from spinning out of control, it’s important to get enough sleep.  How much sleep depends on each individual, but in general 7 - 8 hours is recommended.  One way to find out how much your body needs to sleep, is by not setting your alarm and see when your body wakes up naturally.  You’ll have to do this for a few days in a role and go to bed at approximately the same time each night in order to find out. If you can’t afford to sleep as much as your body naturally needs, you can take naps during the day (20 - 30 minutes) or make up for your sleep deficit on the weekends.  Either way, if you want to maximize your health and weight loss potential, make sure you get enough sleep.

If you’re still sleep deprived and can’t seem to get enough sleep on a regular basis. Here’s a few additional tips you can implement to help you combat some of the hormonal disruptions.

• Avoid refined carbs, especially foods with high fructose corn syrup in them.  Instead, consume unrefined carbohydrate foods.  It’s best to combine it with some protein and fats in order to minimize insulin spike.

• Consume enough protein in each meal.  High protein meals have been known to suppress appetite and keep you satisfied longer. Exercise regularly, especially short duration high intensity exercises which help increase growth hormones production.  In addition exercise helps you sleep better and helps manage your stress as well.

• Learn to take time out for yourself.  Allow a little time each a day to implement some type of relaxation technique to manage your stress.  It doesn’t have to be anything extensive, it can be as simple as deep breathing.  Trying doing it for 10 mins, you’ll be amazed at how refreshed you’ll feel afterwards.

Lastly, if you have trouble sleeping here’s a few tips you can try as recommended by the National Sleep Foundation:

• Don’t go to bed feeling hungry, but don’t eat a big meal right before bedtime.

• Exercise regularly. However, do so at least 3 hours before bedtime.

• Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol in the late afternoon and evening.

• Establish relaxing pre-sleep rituals, such as a warm bath or a few minutes of reading.

• Create a pleasant sleep environment. Make it as dark and quiet as possible.

• If you can’t sleep, don’t stay in bed fretting. After 30 minutes, go to another room and involve yourself in a relaxing activity until you feel sleepy.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Have you noticed the difference it makes in your body and mind when you get enough sleep?

Do you think that your chronic sleep deprivation is affecting your health and weight loss efforts?

I’d love to know your thoughts.  So please leave a comment below.