The Child Who Needs More Sleep
We are well into 2023 and I can imagine that some of you are struggling to keep your resolutions going. The desire to eat better, exercise more, drink more water, or spend more time with loved ones is real. The practice of making resolutions has been around for a long time, but sadly many of us fall short of actually achieving our resolutions. 88% of in fact give up on our resolutions. So how do you actually stay successful in this practice?
Well, you’re reading a sleep blog. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the solution involves sleep. Let’s take a look at the four most common resolutions to see how a good sleep can scientifically increase your chances of achieving them.
Lose Weight
Getting the recommended 7 hours of sleep each night can help you lose weight. Sleep moderates to hormones, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin sends hunger signals to your brain and leptin sends signals of fullness. A 2004 study found that in people who didn’t get enough sleep there ghrelin levels were 15% higher and their leptin levels were 15.5% lower. Which means that these individuals felt hungry more often. So if you’re hoping to lose some weight start with getting sleep.
Get more exercise
Exercise and staying active has many benefits and is a great way to help you to stay healthy. However, if you are not getting enough sleep it can be a challenge to find the motivation to do these things. You’re also likely to get tired faster and you won’t see the results as quickly as you would if you were sleeping well.
When you sleep your body uses this time to regenerate. If you don’t sleep your muscles won’t won’t us this time to regenerate and so you are likely to see less or slower progress. They won’t become bigger and stronger.
Spend more time with family
We all have things that need to get done in a day. Often more than we have hours in the day. By the time you get home from work, make dinner, and finish cleaning up there isn’t much time left for what really matters. Well it’s not possible to add time to our day or magically make our to do list disappear we can make ourselves more productive. How do we do that?
You guessed it! Sleep! According to director of the Sleep and Health Research Program Dr. Michael Grander, showed in one of his studies that rather than sacrifice sleep to get more done in a day we should allow ourselves to sleep as poor quality sleep leads to a decrease in productivity.
Eat Healthier
A study completed in 2013 found that lack of sleep led to an increase in cravings for foods high in fat and sugar. The study states: “What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified.
These results shed light on how the brain becomes impaired by sleep deprivation, leading to the selection of more unhealthy foods and, ultimately, higher rates of obesity,”
So there it is, resolutions are not easy to keep, but you can make it easier on yourself by making sure that you are getting the appropriate amount of sleep. Maybe your new resolution should be to work on your sleep habits. Think of all you could do with more sleep!
If you aren’t sleeping because your little one isn’t sleeping book a discovery call. I’m here to help your child sleep and if your child sleeps you sleep as well.
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