It is difficult to overestimate how important sleep, both quantity and quality, can be to maintain your health and protect you from chronic disease. If you have ever suffered from insomnia or any other sleep disturbance (i.e., kids, pets, snoring, etc.) you know how lack of sleep can affect your mood, your energy, your eating habits, your ability to fight off infections, your libido, and just about everything else.
And for some reason, many people want to sleep less. Not because they don’t need more sleep – they do – but because they think of the need to sleep as more of an inconvenience that prevents them from getting more accomplished than of the life-sustaining, basic-building-block for health that it actually is.
Sleep is the body’s great reset button. You cannot be healthy without getting the appropriate amount of sleep. Period. Exclamation point!
You will spend more time sleeping than doing any other single activity in your life. Think of it this way: sleep is so important that it is designed to consume a full one-third of your existence here on earth. This is not a coincidence, and there is no substitute.
Inadequate sleep has been linked with numerous metabolic diseases including obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. It’s also been tied to some of the most devastating human-created disasters of our time – think Chernobyl and the Exxon oil spill. And it doesn’t take long to develop a deficit or see the effects of sleep deprivation.
Several studies suggest that changes in insulin sensitivity and glucose regulation might occur each and every time you deprive yourself of adequate sleep, likely compounding the effect on your body’s metabolic machinery. As an example, one study found that just two consecutive nights of shortened sleep (4 hours vs. 8 hours) had significant negative impacts on glucose and insulin levels. In addition, there are numerous studies that show changes in satiety-signaling hormones, stress hormones, and metabolism with a single night of shorted sleep duration.
What to do
If possible, avoid getting less than six hours of sleep on any given night and shoot for a minimum of seven to eight hours every night. If you cannot avoid it, or choose to get less than six hours of sleep, then at least avoid eating foods that will exacerbate your blood sugar levels at breakfast (i.e., pass on the cereal, donuts, rolls, toast and potatoes and instead have a protein and vegetable packed smoothie, an omelet with asparagus and/or oatmeal with 1-2 Tbsp of cashew butter).
If you suffer from insomnia or find it difficult to get enough sleep, contact us.
