Why Bad Sleep Makes You Fat! (Plus 6 Sure-Fire Ways to Improve Your Sleep Hygiene)

Don't get enough sleep? Or enough GOOD sleep? Well, you're not alone! In the U.S. today, adults get 40% less sleep than is considered healthy: averaging less than 5 hours sleep a night! Good, quality sleep is essential to long term health and wellbeing, and is vital and for peak performance, and longevity, and the health of every organ in your body. But did you know that poor sleep hygiene can also cause the scale to stall and block your ability to lose ANY excess body weight?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Reboot Radio. I'm your host, Sheila Keilty, the UN-Diet Coach. 

Did you ever wish you had a user's manual for your body? Do you want to finally make sense of all the conflicting and confusing information out there about your health and weight, hormones, gut health, mental wellbeing, and overall happiness?

Then tune in to Reboot Radio and listen in as we have the interviews, chats, conversations, and heated discussions on the most vital topics in the field of holistic health and wellness for women that you've been craving. join us to understand how your body actually works and to make the informed choices decisions you need to create a lifetime of effortless optimized wellness. 

Today's episode is all about why bad sleep habits can actually make you fat.  And we're going to be talking about the six different sure-fire ways to improve your sleep hygiene - and finally get your weight to budge.

Have you tried everything to lose weight, but you're stuck in the scale? Just won't budge. If you've looked through your checklist of possible culprits of why your body is stubbornly holding on to your excess fat and won't let it go.

Things like when you're eating, what you're eating, how you're managing your stress levels, when you exercise and fitness habits, and you still can't get the scale to move in the right direction, then maybe it's your sleep hygiene. 

So let's take a look at your sleep habits and the six things that you could be doing that are blocking a good night's sleep, and the six things that you can be doing to improve your sleep - starting tonight.

Good quality sleep is essential to long-term health and wellbeing. Sleep hygiene plays a crucial role in nurturing your overall health and. Sleep is vital and essential to weight loss, peak performance, and longevity. Along with stress management. It accounts for a full 10% of your ability to optimize your health and wellness.

And when it's only occasionally that we get a bad night's sleep, it's not a big issue. But when it becomes a chronic issue, our physical and mental health take a huge hit. In fact, the damage of chronic sleep deficit and regular lack of good quality sleep affects how the body processes and stores carbs. It alters hormones for appetite and metabolism.

It adversely influences mood, concentration, memory, and productivity. , it causes high blood pressure, increases stress hormones like cortisol. But did you know that sleep can also cause the scale to stall and block your ability to lose any excess body weight at all? Yep. You heard that right! 

But you're not alone. In the US today, adults get 40% less sleep than is considered healthy, averaging less than five hours sleep a night.  In fact, this contributes heavily to the other shocking statistic that 75% of us also suffer from some sort of sleeping disorder, such as sleep apnea.

Contributing to this number is the fact that the majority of people who are obese, having a BMI of 30 or higher suffer with sleep apnea contributed to by the additional fat stores in our throats causing obstructions to a healthy breathing condition while laying down, and since 80% of Americans are overweight or obese, well, you do the math.

It's all about your rhythm. Our natural body clock is set on the rising and setting of the sun.  This governs our natural timing of our hormones. Our sleeping and eating patterns sets the timing of our brain waves and the cellular repair and regeneration are also set on a 24 hour cycle.

This is called the circadian rhythm. The restorative effects of good sleep are key. Sleep is the body's segment of the circadian rhythm for the 24 hour cycle to recuperate, rebuild, and repair. It's the time that our cells and organs are able to rest and reset without physical or conscious mental activity. After all, we spend one third of our lives in bed for a reason. Sleep is the body's time of recovery for all. For your muscles and organ repair, immune system functionality, improved gut health, fat burning while sleeping, brain health and memory, mental and emotional health, and cardiovascular health.

So how much sleep is enough? Sleep. Well, while getting any regular sleep is good, the CDC and the National Institute of Health advise that healthy adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. Babies, young children and teens need even more sleep to enable their growth and development. People over 65 should also get seven or eight hours a night, but it's not just lots of sleep. It's regular good quality sleep that matters.

Have you ever said it's okay, I'll catch up on some sleep this weekend. Now,  although your exhaustion from lack of sleep might overwhelm you and cause you to sleep more when your schedule lets up.

Getting bits of sleep and logging time for later can cause huge impacts on your health and wellness and the bathroom. 

According to numerous major sleep studies, one day of poor sleep can lead to poor metabolic hormone function for up to four weeks. Now four days of poor sleep leads to a hampering of insulin production, the hormone that's needed to change sugar starches and other foods into energy, increasing insulin resistance, which is the precursor to type two diabetes by as much as 30% or more. And a 41% increased obesity risk amongst adults who slept fewer than seven hours a night according to the NIH. 

Now, is napping a good thing to do, or does it make your sleep hygiene worse? Well, contrary to popular sentiment, Dr. Mednick, one of the world's leading sleep experts, a Harvard trained psychologist and currently assistant professor of psychology at the University of California Riverside states that napping, when you need to, is unlikely to compromise your ability to fall asleep successfully and can even help you combat conditions like nighttime insomnia.”

This applies even when you take fog-inducing deep sleep “catch-up” naps later on in the afternoon. Napping was very common in all societies prior to the industrial revolution, and the workday dominated the rhythms of our life. Those who have aligned their circadian rhythm and are obtaining the requisite amount of quality sleep may not need take naps.

Although naps do help sustain the focus energy and productivity needed for an active life. Afternoon, siestas are commonplace among cultures of warm weather countries such as Latin America, Asia, the Mediterranean, north Africa, and the middle. . Unfortunately, the fast pace of American culture stigmatizes afternoon naps.

Now here's six things that block a good night's sleep. If your room is too warm, 72 degrees Fahrenheit is the ideal for cool restful night’s slumber. Maybe your room's too bright, either from natural or artificial light blue, light exposure from phones, screens of any kind can do it. That second wind that you are used to getting when you stay up too long and you feel you've woken up again, well that actually does break your circadian rhythm (and it does wake you up again).

Stress and overthinking can do it, as well as waking up during the. In fact, routinely not getting enough sleep, which is six hours or less, leaves the body without the resources It needs to function properly, creating new inflammation and aggravating existing inflammation. And this disruption can last as long as a full week after a single night's bad.

Now here's the good news! Here's six things that promote a good night's sleep. 

• Regular exercise, moving your body daily. Now, don't overdo it. Morer is not betterer in the world of exercise. 
• Fasting. intermittent fasting as much as a 14:10 window can balance your hormones and your melatonin. That means 14 hours not eating. Not eating anything, and you eat all of your food for the day within a 10 hour window. So if you finish dinner at seven o'clock at night, 14 hours later, well that would be 9:00 AM and you can start your 10 hour window all over again.  
• No carbs or sugar. So eliminating these will reduce your inflammation. That can disrupt your circadian rhythm as well. In fact, cutting back on carbs and sugars can really be helpful as well. 
• Get a hold of your stress. A little mindfulness can go a long way to clearing your thoughts for an undisturbed night of rest. 
• Increase nutritional density and remove toxins. Make sure that the foods that you're eating are packed with nutrition you need to help propel your body through the day with a healthy amount of all the nutrients we need to make it work. 
• Cold shower therapy can help regularly. Taking a short, cold shower can create calm and rest throughout the following eight to 12 hours. 

So use this list to help you troubleshoot the issues you might be having with your sleep hygiene and start getting a better night's sleep and get the scale moving in the right direction.

So what are you going to do about fixing your sleep and the underlying health issues after you try everything? If you still need some help, or if the scale still hasn't moved as you'd like, reach out. Let's talk now if you're already a client but not getting the results you want and still having issues with your sleep.

If you are already a Rebooter or have a health coach:

• Check in with your coach. 
• Ask for help in the reboot community, the Reboot lounge. 
• Reread the Reboot Academy lessons on the app with a new eye for dedication and open-mindedness.
• Check your accountability for transparency, follow through and examine your self-limiting beliefs and approach your struggle with mindful self-compassion.

Now, if you're not a Reboot or you don't have a health coach, but you're considering looking into being part of a comprehensive program to address any of these unresolved health issues:

• Think about the results you've been getting by doing this on your own for so very long. Check your belief in yourself and your ability to make permanent changes.
• What's your why? What would it look like if you didn't get ahold of your sleep and your health issues, and what would it look like if you did?
• Don't have it in you to look at even one more program or solution? Then maybe it's time to look into addressing those self-limiting beliefs and move past them once and for all. 

Have you got more questions than answers? No problem. We're here to help. 

• Go ahead and send us out a comment in the podcast here and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, or you can send them over to me at optimalhealthreboot@gmail.com.
• You can check out more about the Reboot, and what it's about at www.optimalhealthreboot.com. 
• And if you're ready to address some of these issues and you'd like to chat, take advantage of our free wellness assessment today at www.BookMyReboot.com.

I hope this has been helpful, that you've learned some things about straightening up your sleep hygiene and allowing your body to release the fat that you've been wanting to get rid of. And maybe that's the reason why things stalled, but all boats rise when you get a good night's. 

So take care. This is Coach Sheila Keilty. Have a great day. Bye now. See you next time on Reboot Radio.