Good sleep restores the body’s ability to regulate metabolic functions that affect weight gain. Lack of sleep is related to an increase in hunger and appetite, affecting your peptides Ghrelin and Leptin regulation. These hormones are the ones that are responsible for signals hunger and satiety to the brain.
Our tired brains not only long for food, but more specifically longs for sugary, salty, fatty foods. You end up not only eating more and more of unhealthier foods, but your body also finds it hard to digest them. Studies have shown that only one week of reduced sleep can seriously hamper your activity levels and your body’s glucose processing capacity making you resistant to insulin. Resistance to Insulin makes your body to retain more sugar rather than digesting and exhausting it as energy.
Research has shown that sleep deprivation and resistance to insulin over an extended period of time increases your chances of having a type 2 diabetes, affecting your blood sugar levels which can lead to overweight and obesity overtime and irregularities in your brain neurotransmitters production.