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How Your Quality of Sleep Impacts on Weight Loss

By: Christine Sutherland Up until recently we used to admire people who claimed they needed very little sleep. There was even a view that a need for little sleep was related to higher intelligence!

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.

Sleep deprivation, whether deliberate or unintended, can be considered a relatively modern disease, interfering with the normal operation of all of the body's systems and especially interfering with our metabolism. It's our metabolic rate that determines whether or not we get fat on the food we eat, or burn it up to run our bodies efficiently.

I'm sure you've heard the old story from diet companies that losing weight is simply a matter of getting the right balance between the food you eat (energy in) and the energy you expend in activity (energy out). In fact this is nonsense, because if your metabolism isn't operating as it should, you'll struggle to lose weight no matter what you do.

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.

If you also suffer from a serious illness, like depression for example, quality sleep becomes even more important in your journey toward recovery.

9 Ways to Improve Your Sleep

1 Protect your sleep time. Don't allow the expectations of others to detract from your sleep. If you need to go to bed early in order to get your sleep, do it. If you need to stop people from interrupting your sleep, do it.

If the situation is one that simply has to be tolerated, for example with a baby waking through the night, or sick children who need to be cared for through the night, make sure you catch up on your sleep the next day.

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 Slow Down Before Bed. Keep away from alcohol or stimulants for at least an hour before bed, and avoid stimulating books or television programs. Dim the lights, play some nice music, and relax.

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 Make sure the environment in the bedroom is comfortable and supportive of great sleep. You want your bedroom to be nice and dark, and to be at least a little cool, with sufficient air flow. Check your bed and pillows to make sure they invite sleep rather than annoy you!

6 If you should be sleeping, stay in your bed. I know that some "experts" tell people they shouldn't stay in bed if they can't sleep, but I really can't agree. Their theory is that bed should only be associated with sleep, not with waking, but there are lots of things linked to bed that are no problem at all, like reading, having sex, resting, being unwell, or whatever. I say "stay there" because this will teach your brain that bed is the right place to be at this time of night.

There is quite good evidence for my recommendation to stay in your bed. For example if we're helping a new baby to get into a good sleep routine, one of the things we do is try to keep them in their cot and provide as little stimulation as possible even if we have to give an extra bottle or change a nappy. The last thing we'd do is pick them up and go and sit in a bright room with a television on. That'd be teaching them to wake up!

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 Enjoy good relationships with everyone around you. If you have strained relationships, or adversarial relationships, this will detract from your sense of wellbeing and therefore will definitely impact on your sleep. Get your relationships in shape and you'll enjoy much better sleep.

9 Enjoy a good, healthy diet with lots of variety. If you eat well your body is easily able to produce the hormones required for good sleep. Avoid fad diets like the extreme low-carb diet for example, because this robs the body of the ability to produce adequate melatonin (and also causes depression!).

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

There are 17 lifestyle factors which have a important impact on weight loss, and quality sleep is just one of them. The free book "17 Solutions" spells out each of them and tells you how to get them right! Sponsored by the globally-launched Kind Communities Initiative.

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