Is Your Mattress Making You Fat?
You’ve probably heard that not getting enough sleep is bad for you. But did you know that losing sleep might also be causing you to gain weight? Extensive medical studies are repeatedly finding a connection between sleep duration and weight gain.
And it’s not all due to midnight snacking…
It’s common knowledge that a lack of sleep can affect your quality of life. Over time, you’ll feel run down, start zoning out during the workday and even doze off any time you’re sitting still.
Doctors and researchers who specialize in the science of sleep say the damage done at night, when your body doesn’t get the rest it needs, wreaks havoc during the day. Lack of sleep – either shortened sleep or disturbed, low-quality sleep – scrambles all kinds of chemical processes that regulate your appetite when you’re awake.
“It interferes with our circadian rhythms and with the way we regulate our hormones,” said William Kohler, medical director of the Florida Sleep Institute.
Studies over the last couple of years have focused on two hormones in particular and how lack of sleep throws them out of whack.
Leptin is the hormone that tells us when we’re full. When it is working correctly, it suppresses our appetite.
Ghrelin is the hormone that tells us we need more food to keep our energy up.
When we don’t get enough sleep, both get thrown out of whack. Leptin goes down, making us feel less satisfied – even when we’ve had enough food. And ghrelin goes up, stimulating our appetite.
“Often, I hear people say they didn’t sleep well, and they were eating just to stay awake. It may be these hormones playing a role,” said James P. Krainson, medical director of the South Florida Sleep Diagnostic Center.
And unfortunately, lack of sleep doesn’t make us hungry for fruits, vegetables and lean protein.
Researchers say it makes us crave comfort food. Starchy carbs. And the stuff that’s really bad for us, Krainson said.
Like sugar.
“There’s nothing like a big piece of chocolate cake for comfort,” he said.
Compounding the problem is another chemical process that gets short-circuited when we lose sleep. Lack of sleep actually lowers our sensitivity to insulin, Kohler said.
“We’re pumping out insulin, but it’s not reducing the sugars like it should,” Kohler said. “So the insulin is not as effective in getting our glucose metabolized.”
In fact, sleep deprivation has been linked not only to obesity but also to diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and heart attacks. A 20-year British study showed people who slept less than six and a half hours a night had an increased risk of mortality.
Low-quality sleep and lack of sleep can also alter thyroid activity, which regulates weight.
“In general, we need eight hours, and if we don’t get the proper amount of sleep, we pay a price because our bodies are not going to function as efficiently,” Kohler said. “And we will crave sleep.”
All of this leads to something else that might be making us put on pounds. And it’s something you don’t have to be a certified sleep specialist to understand.
A poor-quality mattress that’s unsuited to your body type is guaranteed to reduce the amount and quality of your sleep. Staying up all night tossing and turning on a 20-year-old box spring that’s too small or too firm will cause your body’s internal processes to function sub-optimally. This in turn can lead to weight gain despite your best efforts to stay fit.
So forget working out, if you can’t even stay awake in business meetings thanks to your ill-suited mattress.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Kohler said. “And we’re learning more and more.”
The next time you feel drowsy, be aware that shorting yourself on sleep is causing more than just fatigue. In addition to making you sleepy, your mattress could also be making you fat.
