Not sleeping well is related to a higher probability of developing various diseases and obesity is one of them, since it has also been proven that an 8.5-hour sleep decreases calorie intake and appetite in overweight adults. New research supports this data by showing that a good night’s sleep helps stick to a diet and exercise plan. Their results have been presented at the Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle, and Cardiometabolic Health conference held by the American Heart Association in Boston.
“Focusing on getting a good night’s sleep—seven to nine hours a night with a regular wake-up time along with waking up refreshed and alert throughout the day—may be an important behavior that helps people meet their physical activity goals. and diet modification,” Christopher E. Kline, associate professor in the University of Pittsburgh department of health and human development and lead author of the study, said in a news release.
Good sleep habits help maintain ideal weight
Researchers examined whether good sleep habits were associated with better adherence to lifestyle changes included in a 12-month weight loss program in 125 adults who were overweight or obese but did not have medical conditions requiring monitoring. their diets or physical activity. The average age of the participants was 50 years, and the majority were white and female.
“These results suggest that optimizing sleep may lead to better adherence to lifestyle modification”
Sleep habits were measured through questionnaires, sleep diaries, and data from a wrist device that recorded sleep, wakefulness, and rest for seven days. Six measures of sleep were assessed as good or poor using a composite scale for sleep regularity, satisfaction, alertness, time, percentage of time spent asleep in bed, and number of hours slept.
Sleep measures were obtained at baseline and at 6 and 12 months, and adherence to the weight loss program was also measured at these times, based on the percentage of group intervention sessions attended, the percentage of days participants consumed between 85% and 115% of recommended daily calories and changes in daily duration of moderate or vigorous physical activity.
The results revealed that higher sleep quality was associated with higher rates of attendance at group sessions and compliance with calorie intake targets, and with more time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity. “We had the hypothesis that sleep would be associated with lifestyle modification; however, we did not expect to see an association between sleep health and the three measures of lifestyle modification,” Kline said.
“Although we did not intervene in sleep health in this study, these results suggest that optimizing sleep may lead to better adherence to lifestyle modification,” added the expert, who suggests further research to find out if a Improved sleep quality may increase adherence to lifestyle modifications and contribute to further weight loss.
Michael Grandner, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who was not involved in this work, says his findings show that sleep “is tied to the things we’re doing to help control our own weight” and that “this could be because sleep affects factors that trigger hunger and cravings, your metabolism and your ability to regulate metabolism and the ability to make healthy decisions in general.” “Studies like this really show that all these things are connected, and sometimes sleep is something we can start to take control of that can help open doors to other pathways to health.”
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