“Sleep Deprivation denies you the physical & emotional resources required to make the Impossible POSSIBLE.
Sleep eliminates the need for willpower, while replenishing your willpower reservoir. AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN with this combination!”
SO SLEEP!
Written By: SleepBo Research Team
There are so many different workouts, diets, and get fit quick plans out there that it’s hard to keep track of them all. In fact, it’s hard to tell which ones work and which ones don’t. In truth, if someone wants to lose weight, gain muscle, and get the body of their dreams, it doesn’t matter how many calories they track, weights they lift, or steps they take, if sleep isn’t part of the programme, then all that hard work was meaningless.
Imagine two women. The first one is a model of fitness success, she has that Instagram body everyone is trying to obtain, and the second one is how things usually go. She works just as hard as the first, if not harder, but no matter how hard she tries, she still struggles to obtain her goal: that fit body.
Both women share the same approach:
They eat meals with lean protein and vegetables
They exercise at least three times a week—focusing on both weights and cardio
They limit their sugar intake and don’t have cheat days
And yet, the one who continues to struggle can’t maintain her focus. She has trouble controlling her hunger, always craves sweets, and despite keeping a scheduled workout, designed especially for her by a personal trainer she spends tons of money on, she can’t seem to achieve the same results as someone who is following the optimal fitness programme that emphasizes recovery via proper sleep.
At first, the problem might be that the woman hasn’t been limiting her sugar intake as much as she says she is, or perhaps the workout plan isn’t actually optimal for her. Maybe it’s genetics. Or maybe, diet and exercise isn’t the true problem.
To look better and feel better, “eat less and move more.” That’s what everyone believes. That’s what we’ve all been sold on—the best way to achieve a healthy weight is always around eating and movement. Except it’s not that simple, and it’s not exactly accurate. Just because people want to move more and want to eat less, doesn’t mean they can and when it feels like an impossible task the main culprit is lack of sleep.
Our lives are busy. Between socializing, working, eating, and exercising, we’re running out of time for sleep, or putting sleep off—it isn’t our priority because our lives demand so much from us. The thing is, what most don’t realize is that sleep is the key to being rewarded for our dieting and exercising efforts.
Let’s take a look at the stats. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 30 percent of adults don’t get enough sleep. Now considering the statistics for obesity is nearly identical, it’s not hard connecting the dots. When you put one stat up next to the other, there’s no way the connection is a coincidence.
And what about sugar?
Many people think hunger is related to willpower and learning to smother those cravings, but in fact it’s the lack of sleep that makes your body beg for sugar. Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that sleeping less than six hours triggers the area in the brain that increases the need for food. In fact, lack of sleep pushes you in the direction of the foods you know you shouldn’t eat.
And it gets worse.
It’s been proven that when people don’t sleep enough, the stress hormone that is frequently associated with fat-gain rises, activating reward centers in your brain that make you want food. Not only that, lack of sleep makes the body shut down those areas of the brain that makes people feel satisfied after a meal, meaning that feeling of hunger is always present—even right after eating.
And it gets even worse.
Many think food is the main fuel for your body, but in fact it’s sleep. Sleep is what fuels your growth hormone—your natural source of anti-aging and fat-burning. When you try exercising without prioritizing sleep it’s like riding your bike in first gear—you’re pedaling as hard as you can, but you’re not going anywhere. Like the example above, it doesn’t matter how much someone works out, if they don’t sleep, the effort put in is wasted.
It’s hard to ignore all of the connections between sleep and weight gain. In fact, a study from American Journal of Epidemiology determined that sleep-deprived women are a third more likely to gain 33 pounds over the next 16 years compared to those who receive just seven hours of sleep a night.
Sleep is a necessity, but isn’t isn’t always easy to obtain.
Weighted blankets have many benefits:
They have a calming effect
They feel like a hug!
They can ease stress and anxiety
They can help improve sleep quality
There’s a weighted blanket for everyone
For recommendations on which weighted blanket might benefit you most, here’s the research we did on the Top 11 Weighted Blankets in the UK.