Ever notice how you feel better after a good night’s rest? Most people realize there are certain health benefits of sleep but it’s also important to realize that sleep benefits fitness and weight loss as well. The importance of sleep shouldn’t be understated as the body needs adequate rest for both physical and emotional health. How much sleep do you need? Everyone’s different but 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a good goal for anyone. Personally, my body starts to drag when my sleep cycle is interrupted. I feel hungrier, more irritable, and weaker overall.
Fitness Benefits of Sleep
I think one of the biggest benefits of sleep is that your body increases production of HGH during this time. HGH stands for human growth hormone and helps your body preserve muscle while burning fat. A nice side effect is that it helps keep you looking young as well. In addition to intense exercise, sleep is one of only a few natural ways to increase HGH levels so take full advantage of it. Your body secretes the most HGH about an hour into your sleep and is reduced if you frequently wake up.
Sleep has also been shown to help people lose weight. One hypothesis is that lack of sleep impacts your body’s hormones and makes you hungrier. Additionally, sleep reduces stress. In my opinion, stress or tiredness are two big reasons that people overeat. Finally, if you perform strenuous workouts, sleep can help your body recover since your cells produce more protein during this time.
Health Benefits of Sleep
In addition to helping you lose weight, there are numerous other benefits of sleep:
- Stronger heart: lack of sleep has been shown to lead to higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels
- Increase melatonin levels: people who are exposed to light at night tend to have a higher risk of cancer, possibly due to reduced melatonin levels.
- Reduced inflammation
- Reduced risk of diabetes
- Higher energy levels
- Stronger memory
- Reduced depression risk
As you can tell, the health benefits of sleep impact your physical health by increasing your body’s longevity and reducing the risk of disease and also impact your emotional health by avoiding mood disorders and improving your memory.
Get Some Rest
If you’re trying to lose weight and improve your overall health, sleep may be your best friend. We’re all busy but try to arrange your schedule so that you get 7-8 hours per night. Personally, another thing that helps me is avoiding food late at night. It makes me restless and impacts how well I sleep. Do what works best for your own individual needs though. I think you’ll find that the health benefits of sleep as well as the weight loss benefits make sleep more than worthwhile. Sweet dreams!
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