Maintaining a healthy weight is a different process for everyone. Whether you’re trying to shed a few pounds or make some serious changes to your weight, the process of actually losing that weight can be pretty difficult.
But not impossible, as long as you have all the facts and science behind weight loss.
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As it turns out, sleep may be a key.
We already know that getting a good night’s sleep is pretty important, since it helps us manage stress and keep our energy levels up.
But it could also have benefits we’ve probably never thought of.
A recent study from the University of Chicago Medicine shows that sleep could be linked to hunger, in that getting a proper night’s sleep could lead to eating fewer calories during the day.
The study itself wasn’t about weight loss.
Rather, it looked to see if and how improper sleep could be linked to obesity, which is a serious health problem affecting millions of American adults.
They ended up finding that participants in the study were eating less when they started sleeping properly.
They found that the patients were cutting their daily caloric intake by 270 calories on average, Good News Network reports .
Some patients were even cutting their daily calories by up to 500!
That’s pretty much an entire meal’s worth of calories.
For reference, the study didn’t ask the participants to cut calories. They were simply interested in sleep.
This shows that sleep can have an effect on our appetite.
More sleep means less of an appetite, which can be a useful tool when trying to reach a healthier weight.
The study also concluded that this kind of loss in appetite could have pretty interesting long-term effects.
Though the study only lasted around four weeks, this type of reduced appetite could result in an average loss of about 26 pounds in a three-year period. Which is actually a pretty big deal.
And all it takes is a better sleep schedule!
The participants in the study were all getting around 6.5 hours of sleep a night. But by increasing their sleep to around 7.5/8 hours a night, they saw these results.
As if we needed another reason to love sleep.
It may be difficult for some of us to get a good night’s sleep, but this is a sign that it should be a priority!
h/t: Good News Network
