Snooze and lose: Getting more sleep may be the key to weight loss

Frustrated about that extra weight you’ve put on or those few pounds you just can’t seem to lose? Put down that iPad and plump up your pillow instead — a growing body of research has shown a strong connection between sleep duration and weight in adults and children, and suggests that a little more sleep might be just what you need to kick your body into natural weight loss or weight management mode.

With the hustle and bustle of 21st century life leading the average American to get up to two hours less sleep per night while tipping the scales at over 20 pounds more than they did 50 years ago, a variety of studies have explored the powerful correlation between sleep and weight. Among their findings, a Mayo Clinic study recently found that women who slept less than six hours or more than nine hours per night were more likely to gain 11 pounds than women who slept seven hours per night, while researchers at the Harvard-affiliated General Hospital for Children determined that, of the 1,000 children they tracked from the age of six months to seven years old, those who were the most sleep-deprived were about 2 1/2 times as likely to be obese as the children who consistently got enough sleep.

The average American requires 7-9 hours of sleep each night to function optimally, according to the National Sleep Foundation in Arlington, Va.

“But an estimated one-third of Americans are sleep-deprived in some way, which is an issue because a lot of important things happen as we sleep, ” said Dr. Priyanka Yadav pediatrics and sleep medicine specialist at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center in Hillsborough.

In addition to providing the body with critical restorative time and supporting focus, retention, and memory consolidation of what we learned during the day, she said, the process of sleep keeps the body in an important state of check and balance and sleep deprivation can absolutely affect metabolism and appetite.

That’s because sleep-deprived individuals have been found to possess both higher levels of ghrelin, a hormone which drives feelings of hunger, as well as lower levels of leptin, a hormone which triggers feelings of fullness and satisfaction after we eat – a dangerous double whammy for weight gain.

“Many patients I treat for sleep issues also have weight management issues – these seem to go hand in hand because sleep deprivation can cause glucose intolerance, hormonal imbalances, and other metabolic conditions, ” Yadav said. “In addition, when you’re sleep-deprived, the frontal cortex of the brain – which controls our ability to plan, problem-solve, and make decisions and naturally blunts the impulse to eat more fatty, carbohydrate-heavy, and caloric foods – is less active, ” she said.

Caryn Alter, a registered dietitian at CentraState Medical Center’s Health Awareness Center in Freehold, agrees that sleep-deprived individuals can gain weight because of poor dietary choices they make – consciously or unconsciously.

“Carbohydrates tend to raise the body’s levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which makes people feel sleepier and calmer, ” Alter explained. “So when they’re tired or stressed out, people often eat with less self-control and reach for carb-laden foods like ice cream, cookies and potato chips. The hitch is that these ‘comfort foods, ‘ in large portions, can cause weight gain.”

Her message for the tens of millions of Americans struggling with weight issues? “It’s not necessarily that you don’t have willpower or mindfulness, but rather that there may be a chemical event in the brain causing you to feel hungrier because you’re simply tired, ” she said.

“If you seem to have more of an appetite or find yourself nibbling more, it could be stemming from a physiological cause – too little sleep – rather than a psychological one.”

At the “Lighten Up”weight-loss classes that she conducts weekly at CentraState, Alter instructs attendees on nutrition, exercise, and body chemistry but is also quick to advise on the importance of sleep to an overall healthy lifestyle and recommends a few extra hours of sleep each week for those getting less than six hours per night.

When it comes to weight loss, “getting more sleep and/or regulating your sleep pattern, in addition to mindful eating and exercising, may just be the missing link, ” said Alter, who noted that it can be difficult to motivate yourself to exercise if you’re tired, another factor increasing the likelihood for sleep-deprived individuals to pack on pounds.

Yadav agreed that for many people, getting more sleep can be an easy way to feel better and start losing weight – to a point.

“Too much sleep causes people to burn fewer calories and is associated with an increased risk of mortality, ” she said.

Colts Neck resident and former nurse Kathie Nolte, 64, said she experienced some of the diminishing returns of too much sleep following her retirement two years ago.

“When I was working a 7 a.m.-3 p.m. shift, I was waking up at 5:30 a.m. and going to bed at 9:30 p.m. and I was able to maintain my weight, ” she said.

“But after retiring, I found myself going to bed later, reaching for a lot of carbs late at night, and waking up late after sleeping for 10 hours. I didn’t have the same energy level as I did when I was working and it made me get down on myself, ” she said of the way her new sleep pattern threw off her eating schedule, made her less productive throughout the day, negatively impacted her mood, and ultimately contributed to a 30-pound weight gain.

Nolte said she is already several pounds down since changing her sleep schedule and joining Alter’s “Lighten Up” class in January.

“I feel much better about myself now – more put together and organized,” Nolte said. “And I learned that getting good-quality sleep and the right amount is as important to your health as eating a proper diet or exercising.”

“Most people know that diet and exercise are important to health, but many forget that sleep is the missing, third component of a healthy life cycle, ” agreed Natalie Dautovich, National Sleep Foundation Environmental Scholar.

“Not only is adequate sleep necessary for healthy cognitive functioning, but because sleep is rejuvenating, a good night’s sleep can help you slim down and maintain an ideal body weight. This rejuvenation can lead to more enthusiastic and longer workouts, which in turn can also lead to increased weight loss and better quality sleep. Sufficient, high-quality sleep also leads to a greater ability to self-regulate and select healthy food choices, which in turn helps with maintaining a healthy weight, ” she said.

“It’s great to see more awareness of the importance of sleep to our overall health and to our weight in particular, ” said Yadav, who advises people to tap into the body’s natural rhythm and enjoy the benefits of even an hour more sleep a night if they’ve been getting short-changed.

“The body is intuitive and is designed to survive. So we should just let it do what it needs to do and stop getting in the way of ourselves.”