Showing posts with label sleep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleep. Show all posts

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Sleep Your Way to Fat Loss

Contrary to what has been believed that sleep makes one fat, a new study reveals enough sleep contributes to reduction of fat. So, dieters might as well want to strive to sleep more every night to be able to improve weight loss. The study, however, involved only 10 overweight men and women participants. The number is relatively small and the period of only two separate 2-week of study was too short to be conclusive.

In the first 2 weeks both men and women slept 8.5 hours, while they got only 5.5 sleep during the other 2 weeks. During these periods, participants lived in a sleep lab and they followed calorie restricted diet. After which, researchers found an average of 7lbs lost during both conditions. Here’s the thing, though, sleep-restricted period enabled loss of muscle rather than fat. Body tissues were shed, not fats.

Results during sleep-lab setting may be different from the real-world setting. But hey, there’s nothing to loose in trying this strategy. Besides, sleep has proven to be of great help on health, in general. So if you notice the Cherokee scrubs you bought just a couple of months ago are starting to feel tighter already, you might as well consider improving your sleep than digging into clearance scrubs for new ones. Even if positive results don’t show up soon, you’ll no doubt benefit from enough sleep physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Get Long Sleep on Week Ends, Get Brain Boost

Everyday, your clock alarms early to practically saying to get off bed, get ready yourself and the Dickies uniforms, eat enough breakfast, and drive to the hospital to start another long tiring day. When the duty calls for overtime, you may need to extend up until the wee hours. With just barely 3 or 4 hours, you again have to wake up early to repeat what happened the day before. At the end of the extremely toxic week, you’re all too overwhelmed, and yet ready to stay up and party over the weekend.

The responsibility at work cannot be simply dismissed. So many of our nurses and doctors, spend the entire week taking care of patients. But stay up even on weekends is basically depriving oneself from what is most necessary in order to have the mind fully prepared for the coming week. Such is according to a study published in the Journal Sleep.

Scientists who conducted the study found that an extra dose of sleep in more than just luxury, but boosts essential brain power ahead of the working week. A single, long sleep can replenish the brain with the necessary energy to bring back alertness and better attention span. Subsequently, a person who doesn’t treat himself or herself with long line-in during the weekend could experience impairment with performance.

Depending on how much sleep a person gets during the weekdays, the length of sleep in the weekends may require 10 hours or more.