Jenn's Losing It

How to get better, longer sleep-it can help you succeed! What is quality sleep?  You know it when you wake up:  It's the feeling your body has had enough time to be truly rested and replenished.  As with eating well and moving more, getting enough sleep contributes to a healthier lifestyle.  Research has shown that regularly getting enough sleep can improve your mood and your overall well being.  While sleep needs vary from person to person- logging seven to nine hours of shut-eye each night seems to be the sweet spot for most adults.  Not only is getting enough sleep good for you, not getting enough sleep has been linked to overeating and weight gain.  Personally I know this to be true, I crave all the sweets and carbs when I haven't gotten enough sleep.  It's the worst feeling, you are trying to make up for the sleep deprivation with the very things that make you crash!  They say that inadequate rest can make it harder to stick to a...

Feel like inhaling every snack food in sight? Chances are you didn’t get enough sleep last night.  Sleep deprivation may trigger cravings by increasing levels of a molecule in your body that makes eating more pleasurable , according to new research presented at The Endocrine Society’s 95th Annual Meeting earlier this month. For the study, researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine and the Medical College of Wisconsin had nine young, slim, healthy adults spend two six-day stints in a sleep lab. During the first session, they slept 8.5 hours a night—and during the next, they slept just 4.5 hours a night. The researchers found that the participants’ peak levels of 2-AG—a molecule that influences how much pleasure you get from eating—were 15 percent higher if the subjects were sleep deprived. The molecule is something called an endocannabinoid, which can trigger cravings for calorie-dense foods similar to the munchies caused by marijuana’s cannabinoids, says study author Erin ...