Sleep your way to the perfect beach body

With summer holidays on the horizon, you can be forgiven for spending most of your free time loading up on healthy salads, or hitting the gym, but are you seeing the results from all your efforts? An often-overlooked area when it comes to keeping in shape is achieving healthy sleep. Here, Sealy’s sleep expert, Neil Robinson, advises on why sleep plays such an important role when it comes to looking and feeling your best.

Burning fat while sleeping?

Believe it or not, a great deal of efficient fat can be burnt when sleeping, and quality rest is equally as beneficial for those trying to make muscle gains. We burn around 63 calories an hour while sleeping, but less sleep also down-regulates our metabolic rate, meaning that when you sleep less, your body starts to burn calories at a slower rate to preserve energy.

Poor sleep = poor diet

A lack of sleep can enhance the body’s production of the stress hormone, cortisol. This increases with sleep deficit and can lead to the alteration of the thyroid stimulating hormone, the body’s key metabolic regulator. In addition to this, a lack of sleep can affect the hunger hormone, ghrelin, leading to over-eating. This can lead to a vicious cycle, with those struggling from a lack of sleep heading for sugary, easily accessible snacks that aren’t the best for fuelling the body.

Early risers, healthy body weight?

Whilst conducting the worlds largest Sleep Census, Sealy identified a clear correlation between those who wake up early and having a healthy body weight. Interestingly, 6.58am emerged as the ‘optimum’ wake up time, while those who get up after 9am were 90% more likely to be obese than those getting up between 6am and 6.59am.

Wide awake workouts

Results from Sealy’s Sleep Census also revealed that 77% of us are failing to get a good night’s sleep which in turn is proven to impact our productivity, mood and more importantly, our waistlines. When questioned, 70% of these individuals admitted that they could function better if they had improved sleep, meaning that their time spent working out or exercising wasn’t as beneficial as it could be if they slept better. In fact, there is a clear correlation between getting a good night’s sleep, and being able to work out for longer and harder.

The right time to exercise?

While the right time to exercise comes down to personal preference, working out vigorously too close to bedtime can energise the body at the wrong time. Some of us may find that this results in problems sleeping, with a need to calm themselves down before hitting the sack.

Remember, many of us become so consumed with our diet and exercise regime that we neglect the huge potential benefits of a good night’s sleep, which has the power to improve our mood, energy levels and diet. Never underestimate how much a good night’s sleep can improve your body and mind.