The effects of sleep deprivation can be first seen on our immune system. Lack of sleep will result in decrease of our immune levels and thereby making or more prone to diseases. Lack of sleep will result in decrease of performance levels and alertness levels. A study suggests that just a sleep loss of one and half hour could bring down the daytime alertness by 32%.

The effects of sleep deprivation can also be seen on our relationships. This would create relationship problems such as frequent conflicts, moodiness, etc.

Our memory and cognitive ability could get affected due to loss of sleep. Due to reduced alertness, and excessive daytime sleepiness, our ability to think and information processing system could get affected. This could even result poorer quality of life. Drowsiness, which is one of the vital effects sleep deprivation can end up into increasing the risk of occupational injuries and motor vehicle accidents.

Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Body

The worst effects of sleep deprivation can be seen on health. This disorder can increase the risk of several other diseases. Some of such diseases include high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, obesity, mental impairment, Attention deficit disorder, mental illnesses, depression, hallucinations, headaches, memory loss, aching muscles, irritability, etc.

Sleep deprivation on long term basis is directly related to increase in blood pressure levels, which will obviously result in heart problems, and even too heart attack.

Regular loss of sleep will result in increase of food intake and expenditure of energy levels. This in turn will result in increase of body weight. With loss of sleep, our eyes get affected. It will result in blurriness of vision.

Person’s sexual health will also gets affected to sleep deprivation. It has been proved that regular loss of sleep can result in decrease in sperm count to a great extent, erectile dysfunction, and infertility.

Depression levels and stress levels also get raised due to irritability and loss of alertness caused by loss of sleep regularly.

The effects of sleep deprivation can also be adverse on school going kid and teens too. A study has suggested that a school going kid, who is not getting enough sleep, showed up into decreased grade levels in exams. Teens with sleep deprivation can result in increased risk for depression, negative thoughts, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

A recent study found that sleeping late on the weekend isn’t enough to help you recover when you’re sleep deprived, especially if you’re a guy.

In the study, presented at Sleep 2011, an annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, subjects were restricted to six hours per night of sleep for six nights and then allowed to sleep 10 hours the next two nights. They were given cognitive tests throughout the week.

In men and women, their performance decreased dramatically after being sleep deprived, and did not improve after the two nights of recovery sleep. Although people reported they felt less tired after the longer nights of sleep, their performance was as poor as it was in the midst of their sleep deprivation.

But compared to men, women felt less sleepy and had a smaller drop in their performance when they were sleep deprived, and they experienced greater improvements after they were allowed to sleep later. That may be because women tend to spend more of their sleep time in the more restorative “slow-wave” sleep than men.

“Women with a higher amount of deep sleep can handle better the effects of one work-week of mild sleep deprivation, and their recovery is more complete after two nights of extended sleep,” said the lead researcher, Dr. Alexandros N. Vgontzas, director of the Sleep Research and Treatment Center at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa.

Women may be wired to have a deeper more restorative sleep because their child-rearing responsibilities cut into the amount of sleep they get.

Most Americans report getting about six hours and 55 minutes of sleep on average weeknights, but we need from 7 to 9 hours of shut-eye. Eking out even another half hour of sleep for many of us could make the difference between good and poor productivity the next day.

To find the time, take this advice from the experts:

1. Don’t watch TV before bed. Your bedtime routine may include watching TV, but you’d probably go to sleep a lot earlier if you skipped Parenthood or the 11 p.m. news, not to mention Letterman. DVR your favorite late-night shows and grab a book instead. Read for a half an hour and hit the hay.

2. Log off early. About 95 percent of Americans use some type of electronics like TV, computer, video game or cellphone within the hour before bed. But computers, cell phones and other interactive media are stimulating and can disrupt the sleep-onset process even more than watching TV. If you need to use your computer in the evening, do it right after dinner and give yourself a limited amount time to check your e-mails or catch up on Facebook. It’s so easy to spend hours on the computer without realizing how much time has passed.

3. Don’t drink to get to sleep faster. Though drinking alcohol may help you fall asleep, it increases the number of times you wake up throughout the night, making your sleep less restorative.

4. Don’t exercise after 8 p.m. Exercising right before bed (within three hours of bedtime) can stimulate your body and make it more difficult to wind down and fall asleep.

5. Alternate late nights. If you must watch TV or stay up late on certain nights, don’t do it every night. Give yourself every other night to make it up. Otherwise your sleep debt will add up and will affect your performance all week.

Source: Fox Health

Studies showed that the risk of post-natal depression was higher for new mothers who slept for fewer than six hours some nights than for others who regularly slept longer, the Australian Psychological Society’s annual conference has been told.

The findings were presented in a review of international research by University of Canberra research student Kerry Thomas.

She said while changes to sleep patterns were an expected part of any new mother’s life, many underestimated the potential detrimental effects on their emotional health.

These could emerge in the months after delivery and persist for several years.

Ms Thomas said the evidence available showed a strong link between sleep deprivation and the development of depressive symptoms in new mothers.

“The link between insomnia and depression in the general population has been well documented, but sleep deprivation is rarely studied as a risk factor for postnatal depression,” she said.

“The few studies that have been carried out show an undeniable link.”

Ms Thomas said during pregnancy and in the early weeks after birth the sleep of new mothers was significantly altered, with lower sleep quality, less total sleep time and more disrupted sleep.

If this altered sleep pattern persisted for several months after delivery, some women may develop depressive symptoms.

Symptoms of sleep deprivation include fatigue, concentration problems, reduced ability to function in the daytime and poorer quality of life, sleepiness and lethargy.

A person not getting sufficient sleep can also experience negative moods, such as sadness and feelings of being unable to cope.

Ms Thomas said research indicated that improving the sleep patterns of both infants and their mothers in some cases led to a reduction in maternal depression symptoms for mothers.

In one 2008 study more than half of the mothers suffering postnatal depression saw a significant improvement in symptoms with increased sleep, and the benefits were still evident four months later.

Ms Thomas said there were a number of programmes that had helped parents reduce night-time waking.

These were largely provided through residential sleep units and maternal and child health centres, but online programs had also resulted in babies falling asleep sooner and waking less often in the night, with improvements to their mothers’ mood reported two weeks later.

“Many new mothers underestimate the effect of disrupted sleep on their emotional health and would benefit from guidance on the impact of sleep deprivation, strategies for gaining more sleep in the postnatal period and early training in sleep strategies for themselves and their infants,” Ms Thomas said.

“Within many maternal health settings, women are regularly screened for depression and other physical and emotional problems, and their babies are assessed.

“These settings would be ideal for providing information to women who are having trouble getting enough sleep due to their baby’s sleep patterns, for running short group workshops demonstrating techniques and for providing ongoing support.”

Source: Otago Daily Times

Stephanie Lynn was a ballerina. The 18-year-old loved being on stage, but she had to give up her dancing dreams a few years ago because she wasn’t dreaming enough.

“I’ve always just had a lot of trouble sleeping,” Stephanie told Ivanhoe.

She’s tried sleeping pills, melatonin and sleep studies.

“So far, nothing’s worked. It stinks. I look at clock, it’s three. I look at the clock, it’s 4:30,” Stephanie explains.

About one in four Americans has trouble sleeping from time to time. Close to 25 million are chronic insomniacs. People who suffer from sleep deprivation face serious health problems like diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

“If you start gaining weight, then you’re more prone to sleep apnea, and there’s a whole bunch of other complications that come with that,” Akinyemi Ajayi, M.D., a sleep specialist from Florida Hospital, told Ivanhoe.

Dr. Ajayi says staring at gadgets with bright screens for hours on end could be the source of our sleep problems.

“It can potentially impact the secretion of melatonin, which then affects your drive, your ability to go to sleep,” Dr. Ajayi said.

A recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation found 95-percent of people surveyed used some sort of gadget within an hour before bedtime.

“Try and shut off your computer at least an hour to an hour and a half before bedtime,” Dr. Ajayi said.

He says that goes for video games, cell phones and televisions, too. Dr. Ajayi says shutting them down can boost your melatonin.

Stephanie’s interested to find out if technology is causing her problems.

“Maybe I can try departing from my cell phone tonight and see how it goes,” she said.

She hopes to find an answer and turn her dream of getting back to ballet into a reality.

Dr. Ajayi says using your gadget to listen to soothing sounds or a relaxing playlist is OK. However, he says listening to the radio to fall asleep is a bad idea because, unlike a playlist, you don’t know what’s coming next, and at any time, something can spark your interest, and you could be wide awake in an instant.

Source: Ivanhoe Newswire

Researchers say the findings suggest “sleep debt” accumulated during the week might be taxing the teens’ intellectual resources.

“It’s like a bank — they are on constant, huge sleep overdraft,” Dr. David Gozal, an expert in childhood sleep problems at the University of Chicago, told Reuters Health.

“If this is the way you manage your credit card, you will be bankrupt very soon,” Gozal, who was not part of the study, said.

On average, the Korean teens — some 2,600 high school students — only got five hours and 42 minutes of sleep on weekdays. During the weekend, however, they added nearly three hours of shuteye per night, based on questionnaires.

Those who slept more on weekends — indicating they were sleep deprived during the week — did worse on computerized attention tasks in class, Dr. Seog Ju Kim of Gachon University of Medicine and Science in Incheon and colleagues found.

Although their results don’t prove that lack of sleep is to blame, they could not be explained by differences in age, sex, depression or snoring, the researchers report in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Attention problems were not tied to the number of hours teens slept during the week, however. Gozal said that makes sense because some children may thrive on little sleep, whereas those who don’t will try to catch up on their sleep debt over the weekend.

To Gozal, the findings are just one more piece of evidence showing that cutting back on sleep can take a toll on youngsters — even if they’re spending the extra waking hours doing homework.

“Attention and executive function is the first step of academic success,” he said. “There is enough evidence from animals that shows the need for sleep is not something we can circumvent.”
Gozal explained that while Korean students might be getting less sleep than their American peers, sleep has also become a scarce commodity in the U.S. — among teenagers, adults and even babies.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, school-age children and adolescents should sleep at least nine hours per night, although some do fine on less.

“In a society that is very driven by academic performance,” Gozal said, “a child or adolescent that needs to catch up on sleep during the weekend is probably a child at risk.”

Source: Fox Health News

SWS, one of the deeper stages of sleep, is characterized by non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) from which it’s difficult to awaken. It’s represented by relatively slow, synchronized brain waves called delta activity on an electroencephalogram. Researchers from the Outcomes of Sleep Disorders in Older Men Study (MrOs Sleep Study) found that people with the lowest level of SWS had an 80 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure.

“Our study shows for the first time that poor quality sleep, reflected by reduced slow wave sleep, puts individuals at significantly increased risk of developing high blood pressure, and that this effect appears to be independent of the influence of breathing pauses during sleep,” said Susan Redline, M.D., the study’s co-author and Peter C. Farrell Professor of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.

Men who spent less than 4 percent of their sleep time in SWS were significantly more likely to develop high blood pressure during the 3.4 years of the study. Men with reduced SWS had generally poorer sleep quality as measured by shorter sleep duration and more awakenings at night and had more severe sleep apnea than men with higher levels of SWS. However, of all measures of sleep quality, decreased SWS was the most strongly associated with the development of high blood pressure. This relationship was observed even after considering other aspects of sleep quality.

Participant’s average body mass index was 26.4 kg/m2. But the study effects of SWS were independent of obesity and continued to be seen after considering the effects of obesity.

The researchers conducted comprehensive and objective evaluation of sleep characteristics related to high blood pressure in 784 men who didn’t have hypertension. They were studied in their own homes using standardized in-home sleep studies, or polysomnography, with measurement of brain wave activity distinguishing between REM and non-REM sleep, and sleep apnea through measurement of breathing disturbances and level of oxygenation during sleep.

Using a central Sleep Reading Center directed by Redline, the researchers assessed a wide range of measurements of sleep disturbances, such as frequency of breathing disturbances, time in each sleep state, number of nighttime awakenings, and sleep duration.

The participants were an average 75 years old and almost 90 percent were Caucasian. All were healthy and living in one of six communities, geographically representative of the United States: San Diego, Calif.; Palo Alto, Calif.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Portland, Oregon. The study was coordinated by California Pacific Medical Center.

Generally, older men and women are more likely to develop high blood pressure than younger people. Sleep disorders and poor quality sleep are more common in older adults than in younger ones. Obesity is also associated with hypertension, researchers said.

In the Sleep Heart Health Study, another large cohort study, researchers found that men were more likely to have less SWS than women. Men were also at an increased risk of high blood pressure when compared to women. The current study raises the possibility that poorer sleep in men may partly explain the male gender predisposition to high blood pressure.

“Although women were not included in this study, it’s quite likely that those who have lower levels of slow wave sleep for any number of reasons may also have an increased risk of developing high blood pressure,” Redline said.

Slow wave sleep has been implicated in learning and memory with recent data also highlighting its importance to a variety of physiological functions, including metabolism and diabetes, and neurohormonal systems affecting the sympathetic nervous system that contribute to high blood pressure, researchers said.

Good quality sleep is the third pillar of health, Redline said. “People should recognize that sleep, diet and physical activity are critical to health, including heart health and optimal blood pressure control. Although the elderly often have poor sleep, our study shows that such a finding is not benign. Poor sleep may be a powerful predictor for adverse health outcomes. Initiatives to improve sleep may provide novel approaches for reducing hypertension burden.”

Source: American Heart Association

A study released earlier this year also found that more men actually have circadian periods—you know, the ticking of their internal body clocks—that last longer than 24 hours, so that’s why they’re more apt to be night owls and sleep in later. The majority of women had circadian periods that were shorter than 24 hours, which is why we ladies tend to go to bed and awake earlier.

Reports the Wall Street Journal, “For both sexes, a circadian period that is out of sync with the 24-hour clock can result in sleep deprivation as the week goes on.”

And that’s a serious problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls sleep deprivation a “public health epidemic.” The Institute of Medicine estimates that between 50 and 70 million US adults have some sort of sleep or wakefulness disorder. Sleep deprivation can lead to everything from trouble with concentration or memory to falling asleep while driving—scary stuff.

Dr. Philip Gehrman, clinical director of Penn’s behavioral sleep medicine program, says most adults need about eight hours of sleep a night, but the exact number varies from person to person. “You basically need enough to feel rested the next day,” he says. A good sign is whether you’re able to wake up feeling refreshed with your alarm—no hitting the snooze button.

If your main problem is falling asleep, Gehrman recommends beginning to unwind about an hour before you’d like to hit the sack. There are lots of methods you could try—a mug of herbal tea, a warm bath, reading a book, doing yoga—but the idea is to engage in activities that make you feel relaxed, rather than stimulated.

Computers and smartphones are stimulants for a lot of people, so it’s a good idea to limit screen time during your unwinding hour. You can watch TV, but make sure you’re not tuned to a murder mystery—that can keep you up, too.

Some people swear by melatonin, a naturally-occuring hormone that regulates sleep patterns that can be bought over-the-counter in pill form. Gehrman says they can be useful as long as you use them correctly. The wrong way is to take a melatonin tablet 30 minutes before bed. “It’s generally ineffective when used as a sleeping pill,” he says. Rather, take the supplement three to four hours before bed to allow it time to adjust your biological clock. He recommends consulting a doctor before starting a melatonin regimen.

If waking up is your main issue, Gehrman says your problem lies in either your quality or quantity of sleep. It’s not always easy to tell the difference, but generally speaking, if you feel better on the weekends when you get more sleep, that’s probably an indicator of quantity—you want to up your hours on the weekdays, too. If you feel terrible no matter how long you sleep, you probably have a quality issue—maybe your body’s not falling into its deepest, most restful sleep stages—and it could be an indicator of a more serious sleep disorder, like sleep apnea. It’s worth getting checked out.

Speaking of sleeping in on the weekends, I wanted to know: Does the weekend catch-up actually work? “No,” Gehrman told me, adding that you need four to six nights of good sleep in a row to get back to top performance. “After just two nights, you’re not going to start the next week much better off than you were before.”

Source: Emily Leaman, Be Well Philly

Fifty to 70 million Americans are affected by chronic sleep disorders and intermittent sleep problems, according to the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at National Institutes of Health.

“Living with a sleep disorder is not only unnecessary it can be dangerous,” says Dr. Brett Volpe, physician at the MidState Sleep Care Center in Meriden says.

In addition to the increased risk for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, lack of sleep can be a safety risk on the job and while driving.

“Drowsy driving” causes more than 100,000 crashes per year, resulting in 40,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, (NHTSA).

According to the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health, about 30-40 percent of adults say they have some symptoms of insomnia within a given year, and about 10-15 percent of adults say they have chronic insomnia. People who have trouble sleeping every night without exception for months or years are fairly rare. More often, people experience chronic-intermittent insomnia, which means difficulty sleeping for a few nights, followed by a few nights of adequate sleep before the problem returns.

These figures were reason enough for Patch to get educated on the sleep disorders and their treatments. This is what we learned:

There are three common sleep disorders.

Sleep Apnea: A condition in which breathing is repeatedly interrupted during sleep. Breathing can stop for 10 to thirty seconds disrupting the quality of sleep. Symptoms include waking with a sore or dry throat; snoring; a choking or gasping sensation; restless sleep; sleepiness during the day; morning headaches; forgetfulness; mood changes.

Insomnia: The Latin word for no sleep is characterized by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep. Symptoms include difficulty falling asleep; waking up often during the night unable to fall back to sleep; waking too early in the morning; feeling tired upon waking.

Restless Leg Syndrome: RLS is a disorder that causes a strong urge to move your legs. Symptoms include an increasing urge to move when sitting still, lying down or resting; relief from movement such as walking; greater leg discomfort in the evening.

Other less common sleep disorders include sleep walking and narcolepsy, a disorder of the nervous system resulting in frequent, involuntary episodes of sleep during the day.

Dr. Volpe has worked with patients experiencing sleep disorders for fifteen years. He was willing to help educate our Patch readers by answering the following questions.

What is the most common type of sleep disorder? Sleep apnea.

How is sleep apnea different from snoring? Snoring is an abnormal sound people make from the upper airway flap or soft tissue. Sleep apnea is an actual obstruction of the soft tissue collapsing on itself. All people with sleep apnea snore but not all snorers have sleep apnea.

How is sleep apnea diagnosed? With a sleep study called a nocturnal polysomnogram. It shows the upper airway flow, respiratory effort and brain wave activity.

How is sleep apnea treated? Several ways but the most common is with a CPAP machine, (continuous positive airway pressure.)

Is surgery an option for sleep apnea patients? Yes, but most doctors believe if the condition is not life threatening you use surgery as a last resort.

What causes insomnia? Insomnia is a symptom with many causes; stress, mental disorders, medication are just a few.

How is Insomnia treated? Treatment depends on the cause. You have to address all factors. Medications may be used.

How common is restless leg syndrome? Quite common, fifteen percent of the patients we see have RLS. There are different causes of RLS but it is very treatable.

How is RLS treated? Again, it depends on the cause. If it is due to low iron then we give the patient iron. For other causes other medications are used.

Are there consequences to letting sleep disorders go untreated? Yes. Many studies show that chronic sleep problems can lead to an increased rate of psychological and medical disorders. Most importantly it affects quality of life.

When should a person seek medical advice? If a sleep problem does not go away in a week or so it should be addressed.

What do you see for the future of treating sleep disorders? New medications are coming out for insomnia and restless leg syndrome. It will be exciting to see how patients respond.

Are there any resources you recommend for someone wanting to learn more about sleep disorders? Go online to the Connecticut Sleep Society or the Connecticut Thoracic Society. Also, contact a sleep center. At the Midstate Sleep Center we are always willing to answer questions.

Dr. Volpe had one final comment to make when discussing sleep disorders. “One point I would like to make is that sleep is recently, in the past ten years, looked at much more in the medical field. Health problems are tied to sleep disorders. It is important for people who are concerned to inquire at a sleep center.”

Take the Quiz

Here is a Sleep Disorder Quiz offered by WEB MD to help you decide if it is time to visit a sleep center. If you answer yes to any of the following questions about sleep disorder, you may be dealing with insomnia or another type of sleep problem and should consult your doctor.

1. Do you snore loudly and/or heavily while asleep?

2. Are you excessively sleepy or do you lack energy in the daytime?

3. Do you have trouble with concentration or memory loss?

4. Do you fall asleep while driving, in meetings, while reading a book, or while watching television?

5. Do you have occasional morning headaches?

6. Do you sleepwalk, have nightmares, or have night terrors?

7. Do you suffer from depression or mood changes?

8. Do you have trouble going to sleep or staying asleep?

9. Have you experienced recent weight gain or high blood pressure?

10. Have you been told you hold your breath when you sleep?

Source: Roberta Dolan, Meriden Patch

Top U.S. officials who have taken a hard line against air traffic controllers napping on the job are missing an opportunity to improve air safety, sleep experts say.

Studies have shown that short “power naps” have a rejuvenating effect, improving reaction time and critical thinking for people impaired by drowsiness, said Dr. Alon Avidan, associate professor of neurology and associate director of the sleep disorders program at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The data show if people take a short power nap, it actually makes them perform much better,” Avidan said. “It doesn’t disrupt their sleep. It doesn’t make them wake groggy.”

The U.S. transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, has expressed opposition to napping by air traffic controllers. Under his guidance, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has added an extra hour to the amount of time controllers must be off between shifts, after incidents this spring when controllers were found sleeping while on overnight duty. But, the agency has kept its zero-tolerance policy for sleeping on the job.

However, Avidan said that an extra hour does not address the core problem. Air traffic controllers, like others working late shifts, are fighting against a number of biological factors that encourage their bodies to sleep — factors that only grow stronger as they remain awake.

“The longer we are awake, the more drive we have for sleep,” Avidan said. “It gets stronger and stronger as the day goes by.”

Chief among these factors is the body’s circadian rhythm, which helps set each person’s cycle of waking and sleeping.

The circadian rhythm tends to dip during late mid-day, at around 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. for someone working daytime hours. The dip makes the person drowsy, reducing their alertness and capabilities, Avidan said.

“That’s why we all go to Starbucks around 3 to 4 p.m.,” he said.

People eventually shrug off the effects of the circadian dip, but while it has them in its grip, he said, they’ll be slightly impaired.

Sleep experts believe it’s better if people don’t fight the circadian rhythm, particularly those whose jobs demand constant vigilance. Instead, they believe that employers should set aside space, such as a break room or duty area, where workers can go to grab a quick nap.

“All you need is about 15 or 20 minutes to have a significant impact on performance,” Avidan said.

The nap needs to be short. Anything longer than 30 minutes starts to encroach upon actual sleep and can have a detrimental effect on a person’s alertness, said Dr. Helene A. Emsellem, director of the Center for Sleep & Wake Disorders in Chevy Chase, Md.

“Long naps can be difficult to wake up from and are not as productive as short naps,” Emsellem said. Avidan agreed, adding that people who take longer naps are more likely to wake up groggy.

Nonetheless, power naps are not for everyone. Some people find it hard to wind down while they’re at work, Emsellem said. And some people simply will not nap, even if they need it, because of societal perceptions of people who sleep on the job, she said.

“Unfortunately, I think there’s a stigma attached to taking a nap, so many people don’t take advantage of the opportunity,” she said. “We tend to think of sleepy people as lazy people.”

On the other hand, workers should not burn the candle at both ends and expect to successfully substitute on-the-job naps for actual sleep.

“A nap is a Band-Aid, in a sense,” Emsellem said. “You don’t want to Band-Aid grossly misallocated sleep with a power nap. Employees need to understand their sleep requirements.”

But for those who could use a workday nap, research has found that employers are beginning to catch on, with a growing number offering workers a place to power nap, she said.

“I don’t think it’s an unreasonable option to have available,” Emsellem said. “As we move toward a 24/7 society, we have to be careful to give people the opportunity to get the sleep they need.”

Source: Dennis Thompson, HealthDay

Sleep deprivation causes hormone imbalance (Leptin, Ghrelin, cortisol, you name it). These out-of-balance hormones wreak havoc with appetite and metabolism. The result? When you are low on sleep, you’re more inclined consume extra calories, and you’re less able to burn off the calories and fat you consume.

Here’s a quick rundown of how sleep loss and hormone imbalance can mean bad news for your weight-loss goals:

When you sleep less, you take in more calories. This can happen for several reasons related to your hormones.

• Changes in your glucose metabolism brought on by sleep deprivation will cause your body to hoard the calories you consume, storing them as fat rather than burning them for energy.
• Low sleep causes your body to produce more of the stress-hormone cortisol, which in turn spurs your appetite.
• And let’s not overlook the basic reality that when you sleep less, you simply have more time to eat! Late-night snacking can seriously undermine an otherwise healthy diet-and-exercise regimen.

When you sleep less, you burn fewer calories and burn less fat. Research indicates that a body deprived of sleep burns calories less effectively than a well-rested one. We know that the body burns more calories in REM sleep than at any other stage of sleep. We experience longer periods of REM sleep as we move deeper into our sleep cycle over the course of a night. An abbreviated night of sleep cheats your body of the REM sleep that is prime calorie-burning time. Research also has shown that people who sleep less and still manage to lose weight will lose less actual fat.

• One study showed a group of dieters lost the same amount of weight regardless of the amount of sleep they received. However, the group of dieters who slept more lost significantly more fat than their lower-sleep counterparts.

Like other aspects of sleep loss, the sleep-hormone-weight gain dynamic is more complicated for women because of monthly hormonal shifts associated with menstruation. According to a poll by the National Sleep Foundation, more than 70 percent of menstruating women experience disrupted sleep. The primary hormones involved here are estrogen and progesterone, both of which have critical functions related to sleep and weight loss.

• Estrogen increases REM sleep, which helps burn calories but also can lead to feelings of over-stimulation that make falling asleep more difficult.
• Progesterone can bring about drowsiness, but it also makes you feel sluggish and fatigued. Progesterone also increases appetite. The rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone affect sleep, appetite, and energy level in different ways during each phase of a woman’s monthly cycle.

Here are some simple strategies that can help lessen the effects of menstrual hormone shifts on your sleep and on the quality of your waking life:

1. Re-fill your glass: Upping your fluid intake will help your body flush out extra sodium, helping to diminish bloating and discomfort.
2. Reach for the calcium: One study found that a 1200-milligram daily dose of calcium reduced PMS symptoms by 50 percent.
3. Add magnesium: There is evidence that magnesium increases the body’s production of the calming-hormone serotonin. Used in combination with calcium, magnesium is a great muscle relaxant, helping to soothe cramps and other physical discomforts.

Interested in learning more about exactly how hormones affect your weight, and how you can combat them with sleep? The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan can help guide you through these questions and more.

Source: Dr. Michael J. Breus, HuffPost Women