Sleeping well is key to managing your weight

Our body is our own personal drug store, regulated by many internal systems to give us what we need over the course of the day, in order to function as it should and help us fight off threats to our health. Being in good physical shape, and maintaining the proper weight are the two best ways to protect our overall good health and ensure that we don't need to disturb this natural balance with external chemical drugs.
All this activity in our bodies is coordinated by the efficiency of our internal biological clocks which run on a circadian rhythm (a 24 hour cycle just like the earth’s). One of the clocks regulates the production and breakdown of chemicals that our body needs to aid in our digestion, regulate body temperature, trigger hunger and the feeling of fullness and, when cued correctly, bring us natural and restful sleep. The other clock is regulated by light and dark, which is sensed through our eyes, and triggers the ebb and flow of these naturally occurring chemicals. They work in harmony. But when our clocks’ batteries run down and they are not coordinated and don’t keep time, everything starts to malfunction.

The most important function of our biological clocks is to regulate sleep, because sleeping to the body is like rebooting to electronic equipment. You see our bodies are both chemical and electrical. This makes sense when you stop to think that diagnostic equipment used to check our internal organs is electrical. The chemical and electrical components of our bodies are designed to work together. When we sleep we give our mind the chance to organize all the things we learned during the day, allow our muscles to have much needed rest and to boost our immune system.
Our clocks keeping correct time insures that our bodies regulate the stress hormone cortisol, for example, which, as we know, when too high can wreak havoc with our body and mind, undermining our ability to concentrate and stay focused, or the hormone melatonin which helps ease us into sleep and wake us up without feeling drowsy. Over or under production of either of these leaves us stressed and makes us prone to avoiding the very things that would help reduce that stress – like going to the gym, taking our daily walk or reaching for a piece of fruit instead of a donut. Stress also undermines our best efforts to fall asleep naturally and sleep through the night. It becomes a vicious circle.

And for those of us constantly battling weigh issues sleep is especially important so that our bodies can regulate gherlin, the hormone that makes us feel hungry or leptin, the hormone that tells us we are full - stop eating. Because lack of sleep causes our clocks to malfunction, our body may produce too much of one hormone and too little of another weakening our self control and leaving us fighting with our own body. This internal battle depletes our energy and we don’t function at peak performance undermining all our efforts to do the right things like keeping active and eating healthy in order to either stick to a weight loss regiment or just maintain our current weight.

Everything that you do outwardly is a reflection of what is going on inside you. Each one of us needs a proper amount of daily sleep to shut out the constant flow of stimulus we get during the day and strengthen us for the next so that we and our bodies remain in sync. If your insides work as they should you will feel good and look good. So take care of yourself by listening to your body and being aware of what it needs and it will serve you well.

Tova Greenberg is President of The Sleep Genie. To learn more go to: http://www.ThesSeepGenie.com