If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to go on a diet or eat more healthily, then you need to read this before you go any further…
This time of year sees the sales of diet books, exercise dvds/apps and gym memberships soar as we all try to start the New Year with a New Us. While all the advice points to eating your five portions of fruit and veg a day and walking 10,000 steps a day to losing weight and getting fitter, the third pillar of health is often not touched on. Sleep.
A good night’s sleep makes us all feel so much better and can actually help in keeping the inches off your waistline. Plus your willpower to eat better and move more is severely hindered when you don’t sleep well!
Calorie Burn
Did you also know we burn calories sleeping? The body is still working even when you’re resting. While a number of factors dictate exactly how many calories you burn, an average is around 266-342 calories a night (based on someone weighing approximately 9 stone and getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night). Simply getting a good night’s sleep can help burn extra calories – however that doesn’t mean you should sleep all day!
Sleeping Less, Weighing More
Research from Stanford University found that those who sleep fewer than five hours a night gained more than those who for seven hours to eight hours a night. Poor sleep leads to raised levels of hunger hormone ghrelin and lower levels of leptin, a hormone that’s linked with satiety.
With a third of us now sleep for just five-to-six hours a night, it’s imperative that we start focusing on sleeping better. It is a basic and fundamental human requirement and is vitally important for good physical, mental and emotional health as well as crucial for memory, learning and growth.
How To Sleep Better
If you don’t sleep well, go back to basics. Take a look at your sleep environment and how you can improve it, put the smartphone/tablet down before bed and practice better relaxation techniques, invest in a new bed and if you still can’t work out what’s stopping you sleeping, why not keep a sleep diary? All simple ideas that could make for a better you this year.
Sleep: We all do it, but nearly half of us don’t do it well. And with those kinds of figures, the best decision you can make for 2019 is to sleep better.