Sunshine in April

Hormones and Weight

AAAAHHH! The peaceful slumber of sleep. Yeah, not so much in my world. Occasional insomnia calls for a beer or three. Or maybe just Benadryl. Get up and watch tv or just get up because it’s 4am. Hmmm. The choices.

I rarely thought much about sleep or sleep deprivation for much of my life; I stayed up late when I wanted to, got up early, made it to work, did what I needed to do, then did it all over again. Little did I know that I would become fascinated with the ability to fall asleep and the ability to stay asleep shortly after my daughter was born. For those of you with an infant who sleeps through the night, please don’t brag to those of us whose child doesn’t (or didn’t) understand this concept until well into their second year of life. We don’t like you, it’s not fair, so just stop talking. 😉

With the fascination came a lot of reading on the topic of sleep during a sabbatical leave from work in which I had the goal of writing a book. That book is still there, half written, apparently in a very deep state of sleep, so I am waking it up to share some of the information that has helped and interested me the most. Not the beer you say? Right – that is one of the least helpful choices.

One thing we have learned more about sleep is that it is important in regulating hormones, which in turn impacts weight. Remember homeostasis in biology class? Homeostasis is the body’s attempt at maintaining stability. Interestingly enough, sleep is very important to maintaining a homeostatic state. Your body’s homeostatic state is, in a sense, rebalanced each night in our deeper stages of sleep. When we are not getting enough sleep, we are in a state of sleep deprivation and our hormones can suffer the consequences. We have to have enough quantity and quality of sleep in order to spend the time required by our bodies in these deeper stages for that rebalancing to occur.

How much sleep you ask? It depends.

Each of us needs a certain amount of sleep every night. This is called basal sleep. Our basal sleep is dependent on a combination of nurture, or genetics, and nature, or environment. The approximate range for adults is between 7 and 9 hours. Babies and kids need more than this. It is rare for an adult to be a ‘short sleeper’ or one who only needs 4 to 5 hours per night. No, you are probably not one of those people, even as much as you think you might or want to be. Your body is influenced by how much sleep it actually needs, not how much sleep you think it needs. Before you start hyping about being a short sleeper, try the exercise at the end to see if that really is the case. If so, I’ll quit bugging you to get more sleep. 

Now, remember ghrelin and leptin from class? I  know, I think of gremlins, too. You don’t remember these? I don’t remember them from bio class either. But do you ever crave high fat or sugary foods when you’re tired? Ever just keep eating when you’re too tired to even think? These are two of the main hormones that help us with feelings of hunger and satiation. Ghrelin is the main hormone your body uses to stimulate hunger. Maybe that is how they named the gremlins! Grehlin is also implicated in the regulation of growth hormone secretion, energy balance, sleep, memory, gut motility (moving food though) and behavior.

Leptin is a hormone that suppresses appetite, is involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates, and helps your body feel full after eating. When we are sleep deprived, these hormones are ‘confused.’ Ghrelin acts like it is on overdrive and increases your appetite and cravings for these high fat and sugary foods. Aren’t they so tasty?! Leptin is in hiding from these ‘gremlins’ and forgets to let you know your body if full. With these and other studies, we think that our chronic sleep deprived states play a significant role in our country’s health problems including obesity, diabetes, heart issues (hypertension, heart attack), increased risk of stroke, even linked to depression.

Most of us could benefit from more sleep, so what are you going to do to make sure you get enough shut eye?

Homework:

• What time do you absolutely need to get up for work? Set your alarm for that time.
• Work backwards from that time to 9 hours. That is your bedtime for now.
• Try this for 2 weeks. It’s only two weeks of your life and may be life changing!
• If you’re lying there for more than 15-20 minutes trying to get to sleep or waking up, get up and walk around the house or read a little to reset. Then try again.
  • Practice counting sheep and visualize them jumping over the moon (or cows jumping fences).
• Try counting backwards from 1000 and see if you can make it to 0. Try deep breathing and focusing on breathing.
• Devices in bedroom tend to interfere with sleep, so try the homework without your phone, tablet and tv for a couple of weeks.

This may be easier to practice if you have a vacation coming up and don’t have a set wake up time. That way you can track hours from sleep time to wake time, but that may take a few days to regulate as your body tries to make up for some sleep deprivation.

Life is not a one size fits all, so here are alternatives and things you can practice before bedtime.

• Back up your bedtime by 5 minutes every few nights until you find that sweet spot where you don’t need the alarm to wake up.
• Have a set routine about 1 hour before lights out. This can be flossing and brushing. Washing your face. Doing some deep breathing or gentle yoga / stretching. A regular routine tells your brain it’s time to wind down.
• Journal / write it down to get it out of your brain. That way you have a reminder of what you need to do, including what you are choosing to worry about. Writing it down saves it for tomorrow.

Cross these habits OFF of your list:

• Don’t check the clock. It is a distraction away from resting.
• Staying up hours later on days off. This sends you into a state of jetlag, which takes 3-4 days to recover from. What are you doing those late hours of the evening? No, no, nope – don’t tell me. I do not want to know! Try rescheduling them in the morning or start earlier in the afternoon.
• Caffeine after noonish, but definitely a few hours before bedtime so it can get out of your system.
• Don’t drink too much late in the day or you’ll be peeing all night.
• Don’t eat a big meal within 3 hours before bedtime to give your body time to digest. A light snack is ok, but not too much. Big meals are not your friends for multiple reasons, but that’s for another day.
• VERY IMPORTANT: Quit hitting the snooze button. This seriously interferes with those last bits of extremely important sleep with that wake / snooze cycle. You are literally putting yourself through a behavior that is used for torture. Why are you voluntarily torturing yourself? Set your alarm for when you absolutely have to get out of bed, so you don’t have time for a snooze.

How do you know it’s working?

• Wake up feeling rested.
• Aren’t tired and groggy throughout the day and not falling into microsleeps, where your brain is using little snippets of to compensate for your naughty behaviors! 😉
• You wake up without the alarm!
• Not constantly hungry (there’s more associations around this, but we’ll save that for another day also)

Good night!