Your Fat Needs Sleep Too
scientificamerican.com
scientificamerican.com
But I'm always curious as to the direction of causation.
I would love to sleep more - sure. If only it were that easy. I cannot get a good night sleep for the life of me. Eliminating legumes and gluten, along with a shitton of crossfit has left me with the best results so far.
I guess I'm not making too grandiose a point. All I'm saying is that people that are over weight may not be sleeping well because they are over weight and not the other way around.
That's definitely backed up by the links between, say, sleep apnea and obesity. I've been obese all my life, and every time I lose or gain weight (even 10-20lbs, which isn't that much for me) I feel the impact on my sleep above all else.
Try low-dose Melatonin combined with 5HTP and stay away from backlit displays for an hour before bed [1]. Large doses of Melatonin leave me groggy the next day, but small doses give me a solid night of sleep and eliminates the bags under my eyes. 5HTP seems to augment the effect and promote a more positive mood the next day.
[1] http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=3074&setappva...
“Our study shows that a two-hour exposure to light from self-luminous electronic displays can suppress melatonin by about 22 percent. Stimulating the human circadian system to this level may affect sleep in those using the devices prior to bedtime,” said Figueiro.
On Linux use Redshift. On other operating systems use f.lux.
When you toggle/disable them you realise just what a difference it makes.
Try sleepyti.me.
Let's see, insulin causes lypogenesis; signaling fat cells to store energy as fat.
Sleep deprivation causes fat cells to be less receptive to insulin...
So, pass me the doughnuts while I stay up for the next week.
insulin insensitivity = adult onset diabetes
so be prepared to have some toes or feet amputated (or to maybe just go blind) if you stay up with those donuts.
For this study, did they choose 8.5 and 4.5 hours arbitrarily? Probably not, but a comparison over more gradated time intervals would be really interesting.
I'd have qualified for the study if it wasn't for that damn athletic requirement!
6 hours tends to be my reasonable 'short sleep' time, where anything less and I am significantly tired during the day, but I am easily capable of sleeping all day if the opportunity arises. Usually, however, I think I get 7-8 hours, which tends to be ok.
A big factor also seems to be breathing function throughout sleep. I think I breathe poorly while sleeping and so don't have quite as good a sleep as I could otherwise.
From what I have read, the ideal amount of sleep needed is quite personal and some people are fine with 6 to 7 hours while others just need 9 - but pretty much all studies consistently showed that less than 6 is definitely not enough and when sleeping less than 6 hours for a longer time you might even have hallucinations and at the very least your overall performance will suffer.
So I think you are doing it right. You might want to experiment with those 90 minute sleep phase calculations like sleepyti.me or others.
> A big factor also seems to be breathing function throughout sleep
Absolutely! Sleep apnea is VERY serious and one of those things that prevent you from getting a good night of sleep for a lot of (very) large people.