Stress and lack of sleep

roxo89

I lately been under stress and can't sleep normally and I see that my weight gone up a little. I been eating maybe a slightly more but nothing crazy. Maybe I'm stressing this out too much but I'm curious. How do you find stress and lack of sleep affect your body and weight?

TheFitnessTutor

It greatly increases you chance of weight gain, as it should. Much of this is contributed to cortisol. You can google that if you like.

Basically your body is protecting itself against future hazards. It "thinks" your environment is harsh, so it is preparing to protect itself in hard times...again...as it should. Our DNA has remembered that when we can't sleep, or eat, or if we always have certain hormonal responses to our environment, that shortly after, food was scarce. Running from bears, running from wolves, running from tigers, being in some place where we couldn't go out to hunt or gather, being sick, being injured...

Around here, one's body might call it under eating and trying to see how many calories one can burn in a workout. The body doesn't know the difference between any of these, and is why I warn against it.

Anyways...you get the point.

roxo89

Very informative and makes sense. Thanks

roxo89

Any idea how to keep stress under control?

iNkedFiTmama

I haven't noticed a difference but my sleep is all wacky especially this last year. I have a 7 month old who isn't fully sleeping every night, 3 year old and 5 year old which pretty much = stress levels through the roof.

diwijo13

I too have trouble sleeping. I might get 5 hours but even that is broken up, waking up every 2-3 hours. I do not take naps during the day so I'm thinking that I should be able to sleep through the night but for some reason I can't. There is no extra stress going on. I have a physical in July and plan on asking my doctor about it.

cmriverside

Any idea how to keep stress under control?

Realizing what you can and cannot control in your life and learning to cope with both.

If you need to change something, do it.

If you can't change it, accept it.

Meditation is good, deep breathing is good, visualization is helpful. Read some self-help books or research stress on the internet. Plenty of resources out there.

MsPudding

I'm a life-long insomniac and I certainly notice that during a phase of bad sleeping, even if I'm doing everything right food wise, I don't tend to lose.

I have Zopiclone to knock me out for a few nights and get me back on to track.

savithny

I went to presentation about sleep by researcher at the local university ... he's like a missionary on the subject of sleep.

Not getting enough sleep affects your insulin levels, insulin resistance, cortisol levels, ghrelin levels and leptin levels. All of them affect weight -- and the effect of sleep deprivation on all those hormones is in the direction of weight gain...

He said that, anecdotally, during experiments that require subjects to actually get 8 hours of sleep? Theyve seen subjects lose a pound a week without otherwise dieting.