Exercise and a healthy diet can help you to lose weight, but another key to unleashing your body’s fat-burning potential is better sleep.
Some real fat-torching happens while you snooze, according to research studies, said chiropractor Mindy Pelz, a fasting and functional health expert.
How Do You Burn Fat While Sleeping?
Burning fat while sleeping primarily occurs through a combination of factors, including your metabolism and hormones.Metabolism
The body’s metabolism is responsible for converting the food that you eat into energy. Even when it’s at rest, the body requires energy to perform essential functions such as maintaining temperature, digesting food, and sustaining organ functions.Hormones
During sleep, hormone levels fluctuate, and some of them can contribute to fat burning. For example, growth hormone, often referred to as the body’s fat-burning hormone, is released in greater quantities during deep sleep. Growth hormone stimulates fat breakdown and encourages the use of fat for energy.Insulin Reduction
Sleep improves insulin sensitivity, allowing the body to better use insulin to transport glucose from the blood into cells rather than storing the excess as fat.Parasympathetic Activation
The parasympathetic system, which controls the body’s relaxation response, is activated during sleep, stimulating digestion and metabolic processes such as fat metabolism.3 Tips to Boost Fat Burning
1. Don’t Eat in the Dark
Some research suggests that there may be benefits to stopping eating a few hours before bedtime when it comes to weight loss. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain that helps regulate sleep cycles. Melatonin production increases when it’s dark in order to promote sleepiness, and decreases when it’s light to help with wakefulness.“That glucose from your meal is going to get stored as fat.”
The study’s researchers found that late eating increased hunger and altered appetite-regulating hormones; when combined, these changes were predicted to increase the risk of obesity.
“We recommend that patients with Type 2 diabetes limit their use of melatonin in high doses, as reduced insulin sensitivity is central to the pathophysiology of Type 2 diabetes,” the authors wrote.
As a general rule, Ms. Pelz recommends that people stop eating at least two hours before bedtime.
Eating your final meal of the day at least three hours prior to going to bed is also recommended by Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician and bestselling author.
2. Keep Your Room Cool
Some research suggests that sleeping in a cool room may activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Sometimes called the “rest and digest” system, it regulates functions such as digestion and metabolism, thus helping with fat burning. Parasympathetic activity is switched on when we put ourselves in cool environments, according to research.“This is like the cold plunges, where you might not have felt that calm when you’re in the plunge, but you will feel calmer afterward,“ Ms. Pelz said. ”If it’s summertime, take a very cold shower and then get in bed.”
After being exposed to mild cold for one month, participants experienced a 42 percent increase in brown fat volume. Brown fat is fundamentally different than white fat. White fat creates obesity, brown fat creates energy and heat. Adults have very little brown fat. Brown fat activates in cold temperatures and helps maintain body temperature by generating heat from burning calories. The study also found a 10 percent rise in metabolic activity.
3. Reduce Stress Before Bed
Entering a relaxed parasympathetic state before bed may help sleep.One proposed way is to avoid emotionally charged conversations in the evening hours. “We have a rule in my house: No stressful conversations before going to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning,” Ms. Pelz said.
Cortisol—the body’s stress hormone—can promote fat storage when elevated. During sleep, cortisol levels naturally decrease, halting this fat-storing effect. High cortisol signals your body to store more energy to power you through the day, resulting in greater fat retention.
Another tool to relax before bed is comedy.
Getting into a parasympathetic state means not watching TV before bed, but most people do. If you must, then watch a stand-up comedian, Ms. Pelz said.
“The seriousness of the day is what keeps me in that high-alert beta state, and the minute I laugh, I increase oxytocin and decrease cortisol, sleep a little easier, and get more rest out of my sleep,” she said. “When I get more rest out of my sleep, I’m going to burn more fat.”