Lack Of Sleep May Be The Reason You Are Overweight!

Realizing that you are rapidly gaining belly fat and weight in general is usually not a good sign. Most people think that this is happening to them because of over eating and not getting sufficient amounts of exercise. This is usually the case, but sometimes, the reason people gain weight is because of stress! Stress can cause you to engage in emotional eating and binge eating. High stress levels will also cause your metabolic rate to slow down, and make you gain weight easier. On top of that, stress can also prevent you from getting a good sleep, subsequently leading to an even slower metabolic rate.

Most of the times, people who are under stress are usually lacking in sleep. You should think about how stress has affected your sleep. Even if you are dead tired, stress can cause you to continually and uncontrollably think about issues even if you want to sleep.

Studies from the American Heart Association has shown that just a small difference of about a difference in an hour of sleep time can cause the person who is deprived of sleep to take in an average of 550 extra calories daily! It was also found that people who sleep less tend to carry around more body fats.

Lack of sleep can cause your leptin and ghrelin levels to rise. Higher ghrelin levels will cause you to have an increased appetite, and make you feel unsatisfied with the foods that you eat.

When you are deprived of sleep, this can quickly become part of a vicious cycle. You will probably experience sleep apnea. This is a sleeping condition which causes the tissue at the back of your throat to collapse, causing you to find it difficult to sleep and tend to snore! This then subsequently leads to disruption of your sleep. Even if you have slept for a seemingly sufficient amount of hours, you are actually not getting into deep sleep. This causes you to feel tired all day as well as increase your ghrelin and leptin levels; causing you to gain much excess weight!

For those of you who work all day and party all night, and you take less than 5 to 6 hours of sleep each night, the changes in glucose tolerance as well as endocrine function actually resembles the effects of old age within just one week!

The next time, instead of telling yourself to stay awake longer by taking more caffeine, go to sleep and take a better sleep. You will be more productive as well the next day!