After wearing my Body Media arm band for the last week I discovered that my sleep is shocking. I always try to get into bed by 11pm and now that Sophia generally sleeps till 6am, I thought that 7 hours would be enough. But apparently I am usually awake from before midnight until 1.30am – and I didn’t even realise!
So the reality is that I sleep well from 1.30 until 6am and that explains why I always feel shattered when Miss S wakes me up with a very loud WAKE UP MUMMA at 6am. After 4 1/2 hours sleep my body is craving a whole lot more down time. And sleep deprivation has an enormous effect on you – both physically and mentally. According to research, sleep deprivation will increase both your BMI and waistline. Here is the study.
Body Mass Index (BMI) varies as a function of habitual sleep duration, according to a research abstract. Results indicate that twins who slept between 7 and 8.9 hours each night had a lower BMI (25.0 kg/m2) compared to those who slept more (25.2 kg/m2) or less (26.4 kg/m2) per night. The relationship between sleep duration and BMI remained after controlling for genetics and shared environment.
According to the lead author of the story, Nathaniel Watson, MD, co-director at the University of Washington Sleep Institute, in Seattle, sleep habits have a significant impact on weight and BMI.
“Findings of the study point towards an environmental cause of the relationship between sleep duration and BMI,” said Watson. “Results were robust enough to be present when the sample was limited to identical twins.”
The study included data from 1,797 twins, including 634 twin pairs (437 monozygotic, 150 dizygotic and 47 indeterminate pairs) and 529 individual twins with a mean age of 36.8. Habitual sleep duration was obtained by self-reported length of sleep per night and BMI was calculated by self-reported height and weight. Of the sample, 68.3 percent female, 88.2 percent were Caucasian.
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, previous studies have also found that adults who have a sleep duration that deviates from the recommended 7 to 8 hours a night are at elevated risk for serious health conditions. More information about the importance of sleep can be found at: http://www.sleepeducation.com/.
Stay tuned for more information about the Body Media armbands as they will be an integral part of my Weight Loss Program launching in March!
