5 Hormones Affected By Poor Sleep

Five Hormones Affected by Poor Sleep:

Sleep is crucial for your survival, and your mental, and physical health. If you cut down on sleep to fit more in your day, you will wreak havoc on your hormones, and if you are trying to lose weight, it will affect your weight loss goals in the process.

There are hormones that will be greatly affected when you are deprived of sleep. Unfortunately, these hormones influence your body weight too, so you can expect to gain more weight as you continue to deprive yourself of sleep.

1. Insulin: it is a hormone that stores fat. The more insulin you have, the more fat you store. When you deprive yourself of sleep, you are at risk of becoming insulin-resistant, albeit temporarily. You are also bound to gain more weight.
2. Grehlin: it is known as ‘the hunger hormone.’ It increases your appetite and also promotes the storage of fat and can slow down your metabolism. When you lack in sleep, your ghrelin levels will be affected.
3. Leptin: if working properly, leptin sends signals to the brain that allows you to curb your appetite, but when it’s not working, then you can develop resistance and obesity occurs.
4. Cortisol: is your stress or survival hormone, so if this hormone increases, you tend to overeat on your comfort foods. When stress becomes habitual, overeating, and not sleeping becomes a regular part of life.
5. HGH (Human Growth Hormone): this hormone helps not only in cell repair and generation but also in metabolism. A reduction in your HGH levels due to age or a lack of sleep can lead to weight gain.

As you can see, there is more downside to losing sleep than seeing a few black bags under your eyes. Sleep deprivation will not only make you irritable and inefficient; it will also impede your weight loss efforts.