Study suggests sleeping more can help you lose weight

Participants didn’t change the diet or exercise habits, but did sleep about an hour longer each night

Want to lose weight? , Try sleeping more.CNN reports a recent study published Feb. 7 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggests you could lose extra weight by increasing how much you sleep.The study examined overweight young adults who usually slept less than six and a half hours per night to increase their sleep to around eight and a half hours per night for two weeks.The study's participants who did extend their sleep time lowered their calorie intake by 270 calories per day on average. .This is almost like a game-changer for weight loss or weight maintenance. , Dr. Esra Tasali, author of the study, director Sleep Research Center University of Chicago, via CNN.Researchers say by consuming 270 fewer calories per day, one could lose 26 pounds over three years just through extra hours of sleep. .This is a very well done study answering an important question. , Dr. Bhanuprakash Kolla, sleep psychiatrist and neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, via CNN.They clearly showed that as you increase the amount of sleep, energy intake reduced and this in turn led to modest reductions in weight. , Dr. Bhanuprakash Kolla, sleep psychiatrist and neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, via CNN.So how does sleeping more benefit weight loss?.It could be related to how sleep affects two important hormones, ghrelin and leptin.Ghrelin causes hunger and increases with lack of sleep.Leptin lets us know when we are full.Leptin has been shown to decrease with sleep restriction. Therefore when we are sleep deprived we have less of this hormone and therefore less of a brake on our appetite. , Dr. Bhanuprakash Kolla, sleep psychiatrist and neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, via CNN

Now here’s a study we can get behind.

According to researchers at the University of Chicago, sleeping an extra hour or so each night might be an easy way to lose weight.

The extra snoozing cut about 270 calories from the participants’ diets. That adds up to 26 pounds over three years.

The Chicago scientists carried out a clinical trial with 80 adults to see how sleep interacts with obesity. Counselors helped those who slept fewer than 6½ hours each night learn how to sleep an extra 1.2 hours of slumber.

The study’s focus wasn’t to find a new weight loss method, according to Dr. Esra Tasali of the University of Chicago’s sleep center.

“But even within just two weeks, we have quantified evidence showing a decrease in caloric intake and a negative energy balance — caloric intake is less than calories burned,” she told Bloomberg. “If healthy sleep habits are maintained over longer duration this would lead to clinically important weight loss over time.

“Many people are working hard to find ways to decrease their caloric intake to lose weight — well, just by sleeping more, you may be able to reduce it substantially.”

The study participants didn’t change what they ate or where they slept, but did sleep with wearable devices to track their patterns.

“In our study, we only manipulated sleep, and had the participants eat whatever they wanted, with no food logging or anything else to track their nutrition by themselves.”

You can read the full study, which was published Monday, in JAMA Internal Medicine.

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