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Sleep: The Secret to Staying Slim?

It's a national epidemic: two-thirds of American adults are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. While it's clear we need to eat less and exercise more, a recent study discovered what may be an even more important factor in weight control: sleep.

In a study of nearly 70,000 people, researchers found that sleep habits had a greater long-term effect on weight gain than eating or exercise.*

Why sleep affects weight control
Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of appetite affecting hormones.

People whose sleep was cut short in another study ate more sweet and starchy foods.† "Glucose, a type of sugar, fuels the brain," says Eve Van Cauter, professor of medicine at University of Chicago and a member of the Select Comfort® Sleep Advisory Board^SM, "so when the brain is distressed by lack of sleep, we suspect it craves these simple carbohydrates."

How much is enough?
Participants who slept more than seven hours a night weighed less, while those who slept less than five hours a night weighed more. Skimping on sleep was more likely to result in major weight gain—33 pounds or more—over 16 years. And it's not just quantity that's important, it's quality—light sleepers were also more likely to become obese.

If you're thinking about going on a diet, try going to bed a little earlier, too, because healthy eating and exercise are only a part of effective weight control.

Get the deep, restorative sleep your body craves with The Sleep Number Bed by Select Comfort™. In research conducted at Stanford and Duke Universities, subjects fell asleep faster, spent less time awake in bed and experienced a better quality of sleep on the Sleep Number® bed.

* American Thoracic Society, International Conference, San Diego, May 19-24, 2006 Annals of Internal Medicine, December 7, 2004, Volume 141 Issue 11, Pages 846-850
† Annals of Internal Medicine, December 7, 2004, Volume 141 Issue 11, Pages 846-850

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