Sleep, Sleep, Sleep

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | (0) Comments

I mentioned this in the last post, but wanted to give a little more time to it today. Sleep is really important to general health as well as training. Basically, sleep helps regulate all your other natural cycles and so it affects everything from mood to hunger. Guess what- mood affects hunger and appetite too! Most people who don’t get enough sleep find that they are hungrier than if they had gotten that extra hour (or 2) of sleep. Researchers have found a link between sleep and the hormones that increase/decrease hunger. With most Americans being sleep deprived this may be one (probably small) factor in the obesity problem.

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Hormones are substances in the body that help to regulate body processes. Over recent years, researchers have been learning a lot about the hormones that help to regulate hunger. Two of these hormones are called leptin and ghrelin. Leptin decreases hunger, so people do not feel hungry when leptin levels are high. Ghrelin increases hunger, so people feel hungry when ghrelin levels are high. Sleep plays an important role in the body’s use and storage of energy from food.

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This can be a more significant problem if you are training for a sport or weight lifting for size/strength because your body needs the rest to repair and rebuild muscle and connective tissue. So if you are like me, and you don’t get enough sleep, make the effort to get one more hour per night and see if you don’t feel better.