It has long been suggested a lack of sleep can have a negative impact on a person's health, and can contribute significantly to being over weight, but often people are unsure why. There are many reasons that this association between sleep duration (less than five hours or more than nine hours), sleep quality and weight gain are connected, and for everyone the reasons may vary.

Some common connections between lack of sleep and weight gain:

• Firstly the biggest factor is to do with your hormones. The two main hormones involved here are Ghrelin and Leptin. Your body produces different levels of these hormones throughout your day for various reasons. Both these hormones are ‘auto-correction’ mechanisms to help you control your weight and keep it at a set point. Ghrelin is the hormone that tells your brain to eat, and Leptin is responsible for telling your brain to stop eating and start exercising more when it knows you haven’t been doing either of these well. When you are sleep-deprived you release more of the hormone Ghrelin, which means your brain is told to eat more, and you release less of the hormone Leptin meaning your mechanism to tell you to stop eating and start exercising isn’t working as well. The result: weight gain.
   
• Being tired throughout your day will make you more likely to reach for a high sugar snack to boost your energy levels. It is an automatic response to crave sugar foods when tired because your body knows it will give you the quickest release of energy. The problem being that high-sugar foods equal high calories, and often empty calories, meaning very little or no nutritional value. Furthermore, sugar will keep your insulin levels too high, meaning your body can’t use stored body fat for energy.
  
  
• Tiredness can reduce willpower and increase the attitude of ‘I don’t care anymore’.
  
  
• Being sleep-deprived becomes a very easy excuse to miss exercise for the day.
  
  
• Being overtired can cause you to be too wound up or ‘wired’ to relax at bedtime.
  
  
  
• Sleep-deprivation can stop your metabolism functioning properly, and having a fast and efficiently functioning metabolism is vital for maintaining a healthy weight.

Tips for improving your quality of sleep and feelings of tiredness:

• Make healthy food choices:  Avoid high sugar and trans-fat foods, fast foods and foods high in preservatives and additives as these can all have a negative impact on trying to get to sleep and then the quality of sleep you have when you do actually get to sleep.
   
• Magnesium: This nutrient is a growing epidemic with a huge percent of the population not receiving enough in their diets. A lack of magnesium can be responsible for insomnia, as well as restless legs and cramps at night time. Try increasing the amount of magnesium-rich foods in your diet – lots of nuts and seeds, brown rice, spinach and dark chocolate.
  
  
• Consistent exercise: Exercise will help your body to relax into sleep and improve the quality of your sleep. If you struggle to get to sleep after exercise however, it is recommended to avoid intensely exercising less than 3 hours before bedtime as exercise is alerting and can make it harder to fall asleep. Remember, you are designed to be physically active, so you need to make sure you exert enough energy through movement and activity throughout your day so your body is ready to rest and recover at night time.
  
  
• Stress: If you are under intense stress for long periods of time the hormones released while in a stress response can play havoc with your ability to get a restful night sleep. For more on stress go to www.bodyessence.co.nz/blog/is-stress-your-enemy
  
  
• Examine your sleep patterns. Are you going to bed at the same time each night and waking at the same time each morning, or are you hit and miss with the times and often stay up late? Are you getting at least 7 hours sleep each night? Are you restless in bed or relaxed? Do you wake up feeling refreshed or lethargic? Do you wake a lot in the night or generally sleep soundly?
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If you feel your sleep patterns are not optimal for your health and wellbeing, then try addressing the first three points of eating, exercise and stress, aim to be in bed and wake around the same time each day, and aim to get a minimum of 7 hours every night. If after this, you still suffer from insomnia, it is recommended that you speak with your health care practitioner, naturopath or GP about options to help.

Kerri x

THE EFFECTS OF STRESS

High stressful lifestyles have become so normal for a vast number of people in today’s society, to the point where they are continually living in a state of stress. With the degree of physical, mental and psychological stress people place on themselves, it is no wonder many people are simply not coping. Unfortunately the world we live in has become one where stress is normal, expected and you are almost made to feel guilty if you are not carrying enough of a workload. There is a mind-set that it’s almost fashionable to work long hours, to be ‘too busy’, and always under pressure.

Unfortunately, this way of being is destroying the wellbeing of people, it is self-destructive in every sense, and it will always sabotage your ability to lose weight. While under stress you simply will not lose weight. 

To make this even worse, so many people overweight have a belief that the outside world judges an overweight person as ‘lazy’, thus in turn making them want to prove they aren’t. I know so many people overweight wanting to prove they aren’t lazy by working so hard and running their body to the ground to stop that judgement from others. If this is you, firstly, nobody thinks you are lazy and if they do, then you know what, who cares. You know you aren’t and that is all that matters. Secondly, you are sabotaging the one thing you are trying to prove against – your weight. Weight loss won’t ever happen while you are under stress.
 
THE STRESS RESPONSE

The saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is very aptly suited to stress. Stress is necessary for survival because it induces adaptations, makes you improve and it is what triggers your fight or flight response; however your body isn’t designed, nor can it cope, with being under continuous stress day in and day out.
 
THE GOOD STRESS

 When your body is placed under any level of stress or pressure from either physical, emotional or mental stimuli you will enter into what is called a ‘stress response state’. This state is also known as the ‘flight or fight’ response and it is critical for your body to be able to do this. This is a body response that was designed as a survival mechanism back in earlier times which was the body’s ability to kick into a survival instinct to either fight or flight, so to speak.
When a threat to your wellbeing occurs, which prehistorically may have been being chased by a predator or surviving a natural disaster, your body will rapidly produce two important hormones – adrenalin and cortisol. These two hormones are what would save your life and give you the ability to flee the disaster, or fight the predictor.
 
WHAT HAPPENS IN A STRESS RESPONSE

A gland in your brain called the hypothalamus triggers an alarm in your body that lets you know you are in danger. When this happens signals are sent to your adrenal glands to release a surge of adrenalin and cortisol, the two stress hormones.

The increase in adrenalin provides an instant boost of energy, increases your heart rate and blood pressure, and ultimately gives you the power to either ‘fight or flight’ the danger.

The main stress hormone, cortisol, is released to help improve your brains ability to use glucose, as well as minimising all the unnecessary functions taking place in your body that are not needed while directly in the stress response.
 
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

In today’s world with very little threats to your wellbeing, this primal instinct is not needed nearly as much; however, the body’s ability to keep entering this stress response state has not changed.

This response will still always take place when needed, just as it always has. You may not need to fight off a wild animal as our ancestors did, but there are still always accidents and life threats that need a sudden response – when your child runs on to the road, when you’re driving your car and need to avoid an accident, or in a natural disaster.

The problem doesn’t lie in the fact that you enter a flight or fight response for survival; the problem is that your body does not distinguish real life threats to every day ‘busy-ness’. Any thought processes, work-related incidences, life-work balance, life management, illnesses, financial strains – anything that makes you feel anxious, worried, stressed, tense – they all enter your body into a degree of this same stress response.

This means that every time you experience any type of stress – physical, mental or emotional – your body sends signals to your adrenal glands to produce adrenalin and cortisol.
 
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR BODY LONG TERM?

While adrenalin and cortisol are being produced at such large amounts, your body shuts down any of the unnecessary bodily functions. One in particular being your digestive system, meaning if you eat while in this stress state your ability to absorb nutrients and goodness from the foods you eat are reduced right down resulting in poor health from lack of nutrients. Your digestive system will struggle to pass the food through meaning gas, bloating, irregular bowels or heart burn will occur, and you will struggle to receive a stable and consistent amount of energy from the foods you eat causing tiredness, lethargy, moodiness and irritability.

The next step to occur is your adrenal glands will begin to down-regulate, meaning they will need to produce more cortisol and adrenalin, and more often, to meet the stress response needed for the ‘perceived threat’ to your wellbeing. Once this happens, it becomes much harder to get out of the stress response, but also you line your body up for adrenalin fatigue, caused by your adrenal glands just not being able to cope with the production of these hormones for such an extensive period of time.

Even further being the effects that cortisol has on insulin production (insulin is the hormone that, in turn, allows fat to be used for energy). When cortisol is continually released it keeps your insulin levels too high which will only allow carbohydrates to be used for energy – this can be partly responsible for sugar cravings but will also stop fat from being released from fat stores to be used for energy production.
 
HOW TO BRING YOUR BODY OUT OF A STATE OF STRESS

The quickest and most effective way is through deep breathing. If you imagine yourself being chased by a wild animal your breathing becomes fast and rapid – this is a mechanism deliberately created through the stress response. So if you stop, relax your entire body and begin deep diaphragmatic breathing to the very bottom of your tummy then you bring yourself in to a relaxed state. This is a very effective tool to use, and I encourage everyone to do this at least once a day and spend as long as you can in this state. When you feel your stress levels are up, then stop and start deep breathing, close your eyes and just feel your body relax.

 
Don’t underestimate the degree that stress can play havoc on your body.

Take care, and remember relaxation is the new fashion.

Kerri x

My biggest advice to everyone is self-acceptance. So I ask you: Do you love yourself?

Here is my definition of unconditional self-love and acceptance...

1. You feel good enough the way you are without needing to change.
   
   
2. Other people’s opinions of you don’t matter or get you down. You recognise them as their issue and a reflection of them not you.
   
   
3. You can look at your full body in the mirror (without clothes) and be proud of who you are and what you look like.
   
   
4. You can recognise you have a least-favourite part of your body but you love it anyway and are grateful that that little part is all you have to worry about.
   
   
5. You feel amazing when you dress up, wear makeup or get your hair done, but equally you still love yourself regardless of what you wear.
   
   
6. You feel a bit unhealthy when you haven’t exercised enough or eaten well, but it is not a condition that stops you from loving yourself. You can recognise that soon you will pick up your usual healthy habits again and carry on with life.
   
   
7. You don’t look at your body wishing to change it. You can accept everything you have because that is who you are meant to be. You admire other people, but you no longer wish you had what they have.
   
   
8. You can see the full picture of yourself and your entire life span, and happily live in the present moment but are still aware that in the larger picture of your entire life having a few bad days here or there means nothing.
   
   
9. You never feel deprived, restricted or guilty over food choices. You eat equally for health and pleasure without negative feelings towards the food you eat. You love that food because it nourishes your body.
   
   
10. And my absolute favourite and biggest must: You choose to exercise and eat healthy because you respect and love your body enough to give it the best, not because you don’t feel good enough the way you are and feel the need to improve it.

And the best part?! All you need to change about yourself to believe these 10 things is your PERCEPTION.

Love yourself already, because you are worth it!

Kerri van de Loo
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