I’ve always been mystified by the characterization of weight management as a simple matter of ‘calories in vs. calories out’ – a reductionist approach that leaves plenty unsaid.
Our weight may be influenced by a myriad of factors including metabolism, hormones, medication, sleep patterns and stress. And while none of these factors absolve us of personal responsibility for our health, they may mean that the picture is more complicated than we are often led to believe.
◊ Sleep Function
On a practical level, we all understand the importance of sleep and how it can facilitate or undermine our mental acuity, work productivity and the quality of our interactions with peers and loved ones.
Sleep is critical for restoration (growth, repair and rejuvenation), learning, memory consolidation, mental wellness, hormone function and immune defense.
There is also a mounting body of evidence to suggest that sleep deprivation increases our risk of obesity by altering brain function and disrupting the delicate balance of hormones that regulate our appetite, stress levels and glucose metabolism (more below).
◊ How much Sleep
The number of hours of sleep needed to maintain ideal balance will vary depending on our age, lifestyle, health and biochemical individuality. For adults, somewhere between seven and nine hours of sleep is generally regarded as ideal.
◊ Sleep Deprivation & Weight Gain
Lack of sleep often leaves us feeling physically and mentally weaker and less motivated. In addition to making it more likely for us to skip our exercise regimens (or be unable to workout as productively as we might otherwise), studies also indicate that sleep deprivation makes us more inclined to eat greater quantities of higher-calorie, lower nutrient foods. This may be to make up for the energy deficit or, as another study suggests, because something fundamentally changes in our sleep deprived brain that makes us vulnerable to these dietary choices.
Sleep deprivation also appears to trigger powerful hormonal changes in our bodies:
- Numerous studies show that lack of sleep is associated with elevated ghrelin levels (a hunger stimulating hormone) and lower leptin levels (an appetite-suppressing hormone). The result is that we end up with more chemical messengers signaling us to keep eating than those alerting us to stop.
- Lack of sleep also gives rise to higher levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) that, when in balance, operates to regulate important body functions. However, elevated and prolonged cortisol has been associated with a number of negative health effects including: impaired blood sugar control, high blood pressure, lowered immunity and abdominal obesity.
- A compelling study also showed that just one night of total sleep deprivation was enough to significantly reduce resting metabolic rate (our body’s ability to burn calories at rest) in adult men in comparison to those obtaining 8 hours of sleep. Resting metabolic rate is the energy required to perform our vital body functions (breathing and heart beating for example) while at rest. Since up to 75% of the calories we consume during the day are used by our bodies for this purpose, this is not an insignificant finding.
◊ Dietary & Lifestyle Strategies for Improving Sleep Quality
If it were as easy as lying in bed for seven hours to achieve blissful, restorative sleep, we would all be doing it. According to recent statistics, close to 40% of North Americans report sleeping less than seven hours a night with many experiencing recurrent sleep trouble.
With this in mind, some dietary and lifestyle tips to help promote a good night’s rest:
- Room Climate – a comfortable mattress/bedding and a cool and dark room are essential to a good night’s rest. If you have furry friends who are sleeping with you, no matter how much you may love them, now is a good time to think about recreating the sleeping boundaries and moving your pets into a different room during the sleeping hours. If you find that you are waking from your partner’s movements, consider split mattresses in a singular frame which can reduce motion transfer or, depending on the circumstances, separate beds close by.
- Avoid Stimulants — If you are not already doing so, consider limiting caffeine to the morning (or phasing it out 6-8 hours before you plan on sleeping). Caffeine is a stimulant that mimics the effects of adrenaline in the body and increases blood pressure. Caffeine can also interfere with the brain’s production of a sleep-inducing chemical called adenosine. Studies show that caffeine not only makes it difficult to fall asleep, it can also shorten the duration of sleep. Keep in mind as well that stimulation comes in many forms. Turning off your computer, phone and television monitors several hours before bed can be an excellent way of decompressing the nervous system and preparing for rest. You can ask anyone in my family how ruthlessly I apply this practice in my own life — I have found it to be enormously helpful.
- Alcohol — There is a common misconception that alcohol assists in getting a good night’s rest. While it’s true that alcohol may help us fall asleep faster (it is a depressant that slows motor and brain function), it’s also true that it disrupts the second half of the sleep cycle and interferes with critical REM sleep.
- Evening Meals — Large meals at the end of the day put a heavy burden on our digestive system at a time when our bodies should be focusing on rest and repair. While there will always be exceptions, try to keep your evening meals reasonable portioned and as clean (close to nature) as possible. If you know that certain foods cause you digestive upset (even though you may enjoy them) such as spicy foods for example, consider moving them over to your lunchtime meal instead of the evening.
- Tart Cherries and Almighty Melatonin — You may have heard of the importance of sleeping in a dark room. This is because the production of the powerful sleep-regulating hormone melatonin is stimulated by darkness and inhibited by light. What you may not know however, is that tart cherries are a bioactive dietary source of melatonin. A compelling study recently published in the European Journal of Nutrition showed that consuming tart cherry juice twice a day gave rise to significantly higher levels of melatonin in participants who experienced substantive increases in sleep time and sleep efficiency over the control group. Benefits in sleep duration and sleep quality were observed in both men and women.
- Consider a Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock — Have you ever noticed how much better you feel when you are allowed to wake up naturally (based on your own sleep cycle) vs. being woken up by a set time alarm clock or someone/something else? Sleep cycle alarm clocks claim to monitor the phases of your sleep by monitoring your movement and targeting the best time to wake you accordingly (you set the time range). And while there is no hard science behind their effectiveness, Apple’s sleep cycle alarm clock, for example, remains one of the company’s most popular apps and continues to receive top user reviews. If it works for you, it works for you.
- Taming the Monkey Mind — One of the toughest opponents we will encounter to a good night’s rest is our overactive brain. Calming our bodies in preparation for the more difficult work of calming our minds can be a highly effective tool in achieving a good night’s rest. The formula will be different for each of us, but here are some ideas to experiment with. Many of these techniques can be useful not only for falling asleep initially but also for falling back to sleep when we wake in the night:
♦ Daytime exercise (it is generally best to reserve higher intensity/aerobic exercise for earlier in the day) ♦ A relaxing evening walk in the fresh air ♦ Progressive Muscle Relaxation ♦ Breathing Exercises ♦ Meditation ♦ Yoga ♦ Journaling ♦ Visualization ♦ Music (a wonderful free source: calm.com) ♦ Soothing Herbal Teas (such as valerian root and chamomile) ♦ Essential oils (lavender and jasmine are notably helpful in connection with sleep though my personal favorite in the winter is frankincense — dab a little on your wrist and/or pillow case or add a few drops to your evening bath water or bedroom humidifier) ♦ Integrative Therapies (such as cognitive therapy and acupuncture) as well as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, which combines elements of cognitive therapy, breathing and yoga.
- Investigate other underlying Causes — If you are living with chronic and persistent sleep disruption, be sure to follow-up with your trusted health care practitioner to investigate further. Obstructive sleep apnea for example, is one of the most common medical conditions that leaves people feeling tired.
The information in this post is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice of your physician. Always consult your physician or other health care professional directly before beginning or changing a course of health treatment.
Thank you so much for all the information you’ve provided here, Kelly. It’s quite timely for me as I’ve been experiencing too many sleep disruptions over the past 6 months due to schedule changes and our aging, we think, senile cat (she becomes very demanding at night). Kicking her out now, after 15 years of blissful sleep with her, makes me sad. I’ve always slept well, but am feeling/seeing the effects of my restless nights. You’ve highlighted some points that I need to implement, like unplugging and sipping some comforting tea. Also, thank you for the music recommendation at calm.com. This is a topic that’s not discussed enough. In our modern lifestyle, I think sleep is often one of the first things that gets sacrificed, unfortunately. Thank you for your timely post. I needed it.
sorry to hear about your cat Traci, that’s a difficult transition and tough on the heart. The subject of moving pets out of the bedroom has come up a couple times in the comments and I decided to include it in the actual post, thank you for the important reminder. I’m smiling because I know that you are based out of Seattle and my husband was just mentioning the other day that Amazon employees bring their dogs to work in Seattle!! Too funny. Somewhere along the line, we seem to have done away with boundaries :p
Oh that monkey mind….gets me every time! :) This is very useful and interesting info Kelly! I worked on this a lot when I was seeing my acupuncturist. I was waking up every night between 1-3 a.m. which according to her was the liver qi, so that was what my sessions focused on…one year later, I sleep through until 5 a.m. now (most nights). Perhaps it was the acupuncture, the calming nature of the sessions, or the fact that our diets have greatly improved – or some of each. One thing is certain – I feel so much better through the day now. :) I hope you’re having a great day Kelly! Hugs to you.
good for you for seeking out acupuncture Kristy — I found it enormously helpful earlier in life for my migraines. 5 am is great for a sleep through — do you fall back to sleep for a while at that time or do you generally get up sometime around 5? (this conversation reminds me of how I use to chat with other moms about our babies sleeping through the night!! — too funny — have we come full circle? :D)
Considering a Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock is a good idea. Thanks for sharing a nice article.
This is such a great article!! Since getting back from New Zealand I have struggled every night to get to sleep and to stay asleep. I have been implementing a few of your suggestions already, and they are helping!! A calming tea, essential oils (always lavender, but will have to try frankincense now!), meditation/visualization, and lots of exercise during the day. It is taking a combination of all off these things to chill my monkey mind down…!! I’m going to try the tart cherry juice and Um….maybe not lay in bed watching YouTube……..oops!!
Thanks for all the awesome info, sleep is so important!!
Haha, yes, the late night youtube viewing from bed has a way of ramping things up on occasion, doesn’t it. I hope your sleep settles as your body adapts to the time change and the circadian rhythm of home :)
Hi Kelly, I was wondering what your thoughts are on Valerian supplements for sleep?
Hi Derek, valerian is one of the most popular herbal remedies for the short-term treatment of insomnia but the research remains mixed on its efficacy. If you decide to investigate further, be sure to consult your health care practitioner to discuss any possible side effects, drug interactions and appropriate dosage.
Awesome information!!! I definitely know that any lack of sleep for me is due to taming my monkey mind. I actually started giving some aroma therapy a try :) Also think I’m gonna try the tart cherry juice. xxx
I’ve now come to associate frankincense with sleep and it’s a beautiful thing.
What a fascinating post! When I read the title I thought about this French proverb “qui dort, dîne” (do you know it!). Well, I guess even simple people (that are said to have created proverbs) realised that if we don’t get much sleep, we get hungrier and/or become fat!
I must say that I cannot understand how so many people (most of my friends and family) can have a traditional coffee after dinner. I must have a morning dose and then a small one after lunch makes me feel better but if I drink coffee after 5pm I risk a sleepless night… but my mother can drink two huge and strong ones and then she sleeps almost instantly like a baby…. I read somewhere that people digest caffeine at a different pace and mine is probably very very slow…
I have never heard about cherries! If this concerns only sour cherries there might be a problem to find them in most countries of the world… I once asked someone to bring me a box by plane because black tart ones are impossible to find in Switzerland or nearby France… Tart/acid cherries are simply the best in the world! (Have you ever had them dried and coated in dark chocolate? they are as addictive as prunes in chocolate…).
I have always felt there is something natural about waking up on one’s own… I feel so well for the rest of the day. My natural waking up time is unfortunately around 8h30 the our when most people are on their way to work ;-) Thank you for such an interesting post, Kelly! I’m sure everyone has learnt something from it (and most of us thought like MJ: “this post is for me”).
PS I love your wooden tray!
well I must try tart cherries coated in chocolate all in the name of sleep then ;-) — the study in question relates to tart Montmorency cherry juice which you can order from Amazon :))) Agreed, I think it’s ideal to wake according to your natural cycle/rhythm and that’s one of the things I enjoy about the weekend – we can usually sneak in at least one natural wake-up. The week days tend to be a bit more structured and my husband and I have very different sleep needs (though he hears about mine quite frequently :O)
Did you write this post for me? I believe you did. :) Being several years post menopausal, sleep is a struggle more nights than not. I have been able to identify several attributing factors that you mentioned (e.g., caffeine, eating too close to bedtime, the monkey mind) the latter being the worst. I’ve quit reading emails after dinner, especially work and family related ones. I found there was always one or two that would keep me up at night. I do however, read using the ipad Kindle app set with a black background and low light. Reading helps to calm my mind and move away from the thoughts that sometimes keep me up at night. But even that doesn’t work at times. Many nights I just can’t go to sleep!
Eating sour cherries is new, something I’ve never heard of. I have some dried cherries in the pantry, so I’ll try it and see if it helps. My doctor keeps wanting to give me a pill, but I keep refusing in hopes to finding a natural solution.
I appreciate all of the information on the affects of sleepless nights. The Metabolic, Endocrine… study was very interesting! Thanks for providing the link. As mentioned, the ability to lose weight is connected to several factors, but lack of sleep could be one of mine, one I was not aware of. Bobby is always saying that because I eat like a bird, I should be skinny as a rail, but that is far from the case! :) You now have given me the impetus to try even harder. Thanks! Wonderful post Kelly!
you really hit it on the head about not reading email past a certain point. That has been huge for me too. In fact, depending on the day (and the solidity of my state of mind :) I can shut it down as early as 4 pm.
Weight is probably the most complex issue in the nutrition world (though we are constantly told that it’s “easy” and should be “quick” too :) and for women the variables are tricky – as we age our metabolism generally slows and there’s plenty of evidence to indicate that fat metabolism changes (we store more fat) in and around the menopausal years. Thank goodness we just get smarter, kinder, wiser though right? :0). Some of the alternate modalities to assist with sleep difficulties may be worth investigating. Not sure if you caught it but I mentioned to Sally above that cognitive behavioral therapy is an option with a very solid success rate for long-term sleep disruption.
thank you for mentioning Cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ve been doing some research on it and as a result thinking more about those things that do trouble me and keep me awake at night. Interesting stuff!
happy to hear that MJ. Not sure if you came across this feature from the Mayo Clinic in your research but thought I would tag it here in case useful to you or others. I love when mainstream medicine supports a non-drug therapy over pharma: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/insomnia/in-depth/insomnia-treatment/art-20046677
Kelly, you’re a gem! Not only do you explain the link between sleep loss and weight gain in detail but you also go on to give us some great tips for restoring sleep. Most sleep tips I come across are not nearly this detailed — thank you. I do use melatonin occasionally and have found it to be very helpful. I didn’t know about the sour cherries though and I’m glad you included the link to the study because I’m going to investigate further.
Well thank *you* Rose for making my day. Your comment reminds me of why I do this work ~ I always say, if it can help one person, it was worth it. Thank you so much for taking the time to drop in and provide feedback; greatly appreciated.
Usually I am the one who falls asleep in 1-2 mins when I hit the pillow..but lately have been sleeping terribly thanks to my active cats and overactive bladder..so now I am trying to take a 30-mins nap in the afternoon and it has helped a lot.
Thanks for sharing, Kelly, and have a great day!
Angie
thank you for reminding us of two other important considerations Angie! The pets need to go :) we love our dog and cat too but they simply don’t mix with a good night’s sleep… the bladder thing gets me too… it’s a tricky one because we want to stay hydrated throughout the day and I love the ritual of herbal tea at night but yes, I often have to get up and that can be a complicating factor for sure.
great post! I feel like I haven’t slept well since having my kids (6,4, &2 yrs), I am a very light and anxious sleeper and I have been struggling to get a good nights sleep for years. Even if the kids are fast asleep I wake up from the smallest sigh or noise from one of the kids with a racing heart :-( I need to follow some of your great advise, especially the meditation and breathing exercises!
Oh Katie, it’s really tough when our kids are young… I remember somewhere around the time our boys were 5 & 7 I started carving out little pieces of myself again. Over the years, I began attending writing workshops, exploring pottery and studying in a group environment with other adults. It allowed me to find time away from the home and some critical breathing space. Interestingly, it also allowed me to gain some confidence that the boys were just fine without my constant presence/attention and calmed the worry voice. It does take time though and I know how tough it can be. Thanks so much for dropping by and sharing… thinking of you.
What a timely post Kelly, thank you. I’m just going through ‘the change’ and although my sleep has not been disrupted, I am finding I need just a bit more than I used to. It’s interesting to note how it affect weight, as I’ve been having an issue as well (after all that hard work in my late forties!). But I will persevere and get back to normal soon. Thanks again for such a great post.
Hi Eva, yes, as I was mentioning to MJ below, women face some additional challenges on the hormone level in and around the menopause years that can complicate the weight management picture. I’m happy to hear that you’re still getting some good sleep though – vitally important on so many levels including supporting our immune system during flu season! Have a great day and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
This is a very very tricky subject. I’ve battled sleeping problems pretty much my whole life and feel that I do maybe 95% of the thing advised to help ensure a good night’s sleep. Honestly, I do not remember the last time I slept soundly the whole night.
At some point, years and years ago, I decided to accept that I am wired this way. Melatonin and sour cherry juice (which I also tried) gives me incredibly powerful nightmares. Every single night I take them.
the one thing that has been helping me is a breathing technique – 4-7-8
take a deep breath for 4 seconds, hold it for 7, exhale though the mouth to a count of 8. Do that several times – apparently it slows down your heart beats and promotes a feeling of relaxation that helps you sleep. Interestingly enough, it has been helping me fall back to sleep when I wake up around 2-3am
But, I must say, sleeping problems are a major pain, and I envy people who say they sleep like babies… it never happened to me ;-(
Thanks for sharing your story Sally…it is complicated for sure and the way you feel about sleep is how many feel about weight (another tricky area)… they may be doing ‘all the right things’ and still struggling. The difficulty is that there is no singular solution – it really is a matter of experimenting with different strategies and continuing to explore; I’m happy to hear that the breathing has brought you some success. It’s a powerful tool for calming the sympathetic nervous system and also involves counting which can be very soporific too :). Have you investigated cognitive behavioral therapy at all? A non-drug option with a very solid success rate for long-term sleep disruption.
No, I haven’t investigated that, but will. I am adamantly against sleeping pills of any type. Tried melatonin just because it seemed harmless, but most of my friends are on Ambien, and I am NOT going there. ;-)
Great info Kelly… I think everyone can pull something beneficial from this. I love the pic – very fresh, clean & crisp. Like the hint of subtle mauve/pink seen in the glasses, cup handle, flowers and yes, even in your captions! C’est beautiful :)
wow, wow, wow, you didn’t miss a thing :) I took this shot in our bedroom early in the morning. I have never photographed in the bedroom before ;-) and really wasn’t sure how it would work out but there is some lovely, gentle light that streams in and ultimately, I was happy with it too, thanks. Those flowers come from our backyard garden… they bring me the biggest smile and I felt like I needed a flash of pink in my life ♡.
Loved this!! So incredibly helpful and informative.
so happy to hear that! thank you kindly for letting me know.