Hi everyone. It is very important to get a good night’s sleep. There have been many studies and most scientists agree that adults need about 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep every night. One sleepless night can impair your movement and focus as if you are drunk. Two sleepless nights in a row can make you forgetful, have slurred speech and stumble when you walk.

Another disadvantage of not getting enough sleep is that our activity goes up so our energy expenditure goes up and we tend to eat more. The other reason why we eat more is because lack of sleep decreases the levels of the hormone leptin which signals our body to stop eating and increases the levels of the hormone ghrelin which signals our body to eat more. A study in March 2016 showed that lack of sleep activates the endocannabinoid system. This system is involved in reward driven or pleasurable eating. This system is also triggered when people smoke marijuana. Studies have shown that people smoking marijuana feel hungry afterwards. But getting back to lack of sleep, two studies have shown that we tend to consume lot of extra calories (between 400-1000 extra calories). It is more than what we need to compensate for increase in energy expenditure. The worst part about this is not the extra calories, but the type of extra calories. These studies showed that we tend to eat fatty and salty foods rather than proteins. Lack of sleep also decreases sensitivity to insulin and can lead to Type 2 diabetes.

So  make sure you get a good night’s sleep.