Why Good Sleep Is Essential To Weight Loss

In the 80's the ability to live with very little sleep was held up as some kind of badge of honour. The less sleep you needed, the more intelligent you were, and the more highly regarded you were.

Modern scientific research shows that not only were those "sleep rejectors" behaving unintelligently and producing lower-grade, lower levels of work, but they were setting themselves up for serious mental and physical disease.

In fact a lack of sufficient sleep is now being seen as a modern disease, creating stress, compromising the body's ability to regenerate, and even lowering our basic metabolic rate. Our metabolic rate plays a crucial role in weight loss and is every bit as important as the amount of food that we eat, and the amount of activity we have.

For instance many diet companies will tell you that weight loss is simple, just a matter of "energy in/energy out". This is a particularly stupid lie, because the state of your metabolism is more important than either.

Because the quality of your sleep has such a big impact on weight loss, quality sleep is an essential part of any weight loss program, although the actual amount varies from one individual to another. Most adults need at least 7.5-8.0 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. Children and teenagers require much more - around 12-13 hours of sleep each night.

When it comes to recovery from serious illness, quality sleep becomes even more important.

9 Tips to a Better Night's Sleep

1 Sleep time is as precious as the air you breathe, so guard it well. Who cares if the house is a mess! It's far more important that every member of the family get their sleep time.

Sometimes our family responsibilities mean that our sleep is necessarily interrupted and every parent is very familiar with that! But make sure you catch up the next day, and that at least on some nights someone else takes turns being the "nightwalker".

2 It's important to have a regular routine for your day. This means pretty much going to bed and getting up the same time each day, and having a regular "calm down" time in the hour before bed. This trains your brain to sleep much better.

3 Getting calm before going to bed. This means avoiding things that are stimulating to your body or brain, like loud or stressful television or music, arguments, caffeine or alcohol. Conversely you should use dimmed lighting, quiet background music, and laid-back conversation as a way to slow down and get ready for sleep.

4 Getting rid of stress from your life in general. When people suffer from repetitive thoughts at sleep time, with the mind turning over and over the same stuff, it's generally because there's an unacceptable level of stress in their lives. No-one needs to put up with this, especially with the advent of Logotherapy and NeuroStim, two relatively new techniques (see TopLifeSolutions.com for more information on these).

5 Is your bedroom actually conducive to good sleep? Is it quiet? Is it dark enough? Is there fresh air? Are your pillows, bed, and coverings, all comfortable and cosy? Do you feel safe and secure?

6 Stay in Bed. Some sleep experts advise you to get up if you can't fall to sleep within 30 minutes, so that in your mind bed is linked only to sleeping. I find this rather silly, since bed can be linked to having sex, reading, resting, daydreaming, and even being ill. Instead I recommend staying in bed so that you train your mind that this is the correct place to be at this time.

And there's very good evidence for my stance on this. Take the example of a baby or small child whom we're helping to move into a good sleep routine. One thing we never do is, after a time of trying, get them up out of their bed! The idea is to provide as little stimulation as we possibly can because otherwise that would be training them to be wakeful - the exact opposite of what we're hoping to achieve.

This means that you can be confident that staying in bed is the best thing you can do to build better sleep habits.

7 Be Active During the Day. A good level of physical activity is essential to good sleep.

8 Foster your relationships with family, friends, workmates and the wider community. We feel a greater sense of wellbeing and we sleep better when our relationships are good.

9 Ensure your nutrition is adequate. Our body can produce the right hormones at the right time only if we take in the right nutrients. For example the extre low-carb diet that is being touted around the internet (and unfortunately even by some doctors who should know better!) is a recipe for lousy sleep, because it interferes with the production of melatonin. Enjoy a good, healthy diet with lots of variety and you'll increase your ability to sleep well.

Article Source: http://www.search4allinfo.com

There are 17 lifestyle factors which have a heavy impact on weight loss, and sleep is just one of them. Christine Sutherland's free book "17 Solutions" spells out each of them and tells you how to get them right! Available courtesy of the globally-launched Kind Communities Initiative.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated