Get your sleep my FP Friends!

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hammersshells
hammersshells Posts: 56
in Health and Weight Loss
Get Seven Hours of Shut-eye for a Healthier Mind and Body
A full night's sleep is not a luxury — it's a basic necessity for healthy hormone balance. Once you dip below seven hours a night, you are increasing your risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, depression, and obesity.
According to Jillian Michaels:

Some researchers believe that slow-wave sleep — the deep, dreamless sleep that you ideally sink into about three or four times a night — may actually regulate your metabolism. Sleep researcher break down sleep into five stages. Stage 4 slow-wave sleep, which begins about an hour after we fall asleep, is when we release our greatest pulses of growth hormone, the hormone that prompts the body to burn stored fat. When we're young, we spend about 20 percent of our time asleep in slow-wave stages 3 and 4. But as we get older, we may only spend about 10 or even 5 percent there.

Sadly, just two nights of bad sleep will cut your satiety hormone leptin by 20 percent and increase your hunger hormone ghrelin by 30 percent. That one-two punch makes you much more likely to snack on high-carb treats, which couldn't come at a worse time for your insulin levels. In a recent study, University of Chicago researchers found that just three nights of poor sleep made the bodies of young, healthy test subjects 25 percent less sensitive to insulin. This level of insulin resistance is comparable to that brought on by carrying 20 to 30 extra pounds.

In order to block fat-storage hormones and allow the full release of fat-burning hormones, you need to get at least seven hours of sleep a night!

~~Just thought you would want to know!! I sure needed this reminder!
Jen

Replies

  • ktthegr8
    ktthegr8 Posts: 479
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    This is so true! I can't even think about going to the gym if I don't get at least 7 hours of sleep. The nice thing about going to bed early is that you really cut down on the late night snacking.
  • doubleloop23
    doubleloop23 Posts: 86
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    This is really good to know! Thanks!:flowerforyou:
  • mommyto2cuties
    mommyto2cuties Posts: 82 Member
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    Thanks for sharing this! Hey would you mind telling my 8 month old about this? It sure would be nice if she would sleep through the night! :smile: But seriously, I totally feel like when I am sleeping better I eat better! The worst is when I wake up at 4am to feed my daughter and I am too hungry to fall back asleep so I end up eating string cheese or something!
  • JaneAusten
    JaneAusten Posts: 50 Member
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    So true! And since i've been exercising a lot I find that I can sleep up to 9 hours if I don't have to get up! My husband has been biking hard for two years and he has gone from 5 or 6 hrs a night to 7 or eight (but he still snores!)
  • JoyousMaximus
    JoyousMaximus Posts: 9,285 Member
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    A study also showed that people that go from sleeping 7hrs a night to 8hrs a night decreased their daily calorie intake by 6%. Now if only I can get my body to actually stay asleep for 7 hrs straight. It just doesn't seem to want to. :grumble:

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