Sleep and Your Metabolism “Machine”

Sleep science has found that the stability of your metabolism is profoundly influenced by your sleep patterns. Both deprivation of sleep and/or excessive amounts of sleep can hinder your metabolism’s equilibrium and even lead to serious health risks.

Our metabolism functions as a regulator of biochemical processes which utilize energy to maintain the wellbeing of our body’s “machinery”.

Basically, our appetite control (feeling hungry vs. full), and our energy expenditure (burning calories), are determined by whether our metabolism’s machine is WELL RESTED!

How Does the Metabolism Work?

Our lifestyle–including exercise, sleep, and anything we consume–plays a crucial role in the flow of our metabolic pathways.

When imbalances present themselves, dysregulation of our metabolic pathway’s occur. While the body is resilient and finds ways to reverse damaging interference with these pathways, this can come at a cost to your health over the long term.

In simple terms, we can think of our metabolism flowing along pathways (metabolic pathways), like a series of steps that goes in one direction, aimed at building up and breaking down energy in our cells.

These complex metabolic pathways are interconnected with how our body uses or stores carbohydrates and proteins, cleanses toxins (free radicals), and regulates our hormones that control appetite. Their job can be chemically disrupted by many things, but poor sleep patterns have now been found to have a harsh impact that you may not be aware of.

How Does Sleep Affect Your Metabolism

Cats spend up to 18 hours asleep, adult humans require anywhere from 7 to 10 hours of sleep, while elephants can only need 3 hours of sleep! It is thought that the duration of an organism’s need for sleep is related to differences in their metabolism.

Let us first reiterate: our metabolism is a complex machine. So, what you may not be aware of is that all organisms’ metabolisms interact with their body clock (circadian rhythms).

Our metabolism is affected by many things, but circadian rhythms, ruled mostly by exposure to daylight and dark for most organisms, is across the board significant. This is because important neurological instructions governing our metabolism are interconnected with the brain’s response to night time resting and daytime activity.

If our eyes receive any irregularity of exposure to light and dark, within the normal 24-hour period our body clock is accustomed to, the brain’s government of our sleep will be disrupted.

Whatever the disruption may be, both sleep deprivation and oversleeping, it can skew the secretions of hormones that cause our metabolism to malfunction. Sleep is so fundamental to keeping this in balance.

Sleep Deprivation and Your Metabolism

If you are suffering from sleep deprivation, your metabolism loses its equilibrium.

For example, leptin and ghrelin, our appetite control hormones, function to increase or inhibit our brain’s appetite for cravings or feeling satisfied and full. When the brain is starved for sleep, these hormones essentially go to work looking to replenish energy (food) to satisfy the void.

Sleep experts have helped us to be more aware of how sleep deprivation can cause jolts in our body’s fine tuned metabolism. Indeed, when we are sleep deprived, we have noticed that our body craves ways to make up for being tired, more emotional, and having low energy.

A stacked hamburger on a bun, with a side of french fries, suddenly seems irresistible!

The reason for this is not just a lapse in your willpower. It is actually more likely related to the way our hormones have been altered when we are sleep deprived. The occasional “munchies” won’t harm you, but if this is a repeated cycle, it leads to obesity and other serious health risks.

Oversleeping and Your Metabolism

The truth is that many people who find themselves sleeping excessively may be embarrassed about it. They may be judging themselves thinking, “I am lazy”, or, comparing themselves to others who seem to have no trouble with energy and their sleep schedules.

If you are sleeping longer than normal, it’s a good idea to speak to your doctor about this. There could be underlying physical conditions making you want to stay in bed longer than normal:

• Infection
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Sleep Apnea
• Hypothyroidism
• Headaches
• Back Pain
• Heart Disease
• Metabolic Syndrome
• Gastrointestinal Disorders
• Parkinson’s Disease

Your Mattress and Your Metabolism

If you are sleeping on an unfit mattress, then your sleep is being sabotaged. With all that we know today about our metabolism’s machine and its need for deep sleep, a good mattress will cost you far less than medical bills down the road.

While health problems, such as back pain, may have a biological origin, your mattress still makes a big difference in sleep quality. Science has proven that our metabolism relies on proper sleep in order to function properly. Taking time to shop for a life changing sleep surface may be the most precious time you spend protecting your health.

At Mattress World Northwest, we have sleep experts at every location.

They can assist you in finding the right mattress for all of your custom needs. And, with easy financing available to everyone, you can feel confident that you won’t need to compromise on making the right choice.

Check out your options: https://www.mattressworldnorthwest.com/no-credit-needed/

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