You’ve probably already heard that adults should sleep seven to nine hours each day. However, many people get far less than what’s recommended. Many people believe they’ll sleep a little extra on the weekends, but sleep simply doesn’t work that way. You need it every day.
Lack of sleep affects everything from emotional intelligence to problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills. It should come as no surprise then that getting too little sleep can wreak havoc on your food choices. That’s why many healthy eating plans include getting at least seven hours of sleep for optimum results.
Regulating Hunger Hormones
The body is a complex system that works together to keep you healthy. When you don’t give your body a chance to recharge, repair, and get ready for another day, you start to see detrimental effects. Recent studies have shown that insufficient sleep contributes to weight gain and poor eating habits because of how the body releases and reacts to hormones.
It comes down to this, when you get full your body sends out hormones like ghrelin and leptin that tell your brain you’ve had enough. But, when you don’t get enough sleep, your body doesn’t react as quickly to those hormones, and you overeat. Instead of stopping after the first course, when you’re tired, you may be tempted to have a second or third helping because your brain hasn’t caught up with what your hormones have to say.
Eating when you’re tired makes sense if you think of it in an evolutionary sense. If you’re tired, then you must need more energy to survive, unless, as in modern times, you have food readily available.
