Sleep is one of the first things we give up when we are ‘running out of hours’ in the day. But why? It's essential for overall health and survival.

Sleep affects our mood, cognition, memory, physical performance and our ability to lose or maintain weight.

First things first. The amount of sleep we are aiming to achieve as adults is on average of 7-9 hours, with 7 being the minimum we should be averaging across each night.

Before you give yourself a pat on the back for the 7 hours, are the 7 hours ‘good’ quality? Ask yourself the following:

  • Do I wake up feeling refreshed?
  • Do I feel sluggish throughout the day?
  • Do I wake up throughout the night?
  • Do I need to press the snooze button multiple times?
  • Do I find it difficult to fall asleep?

Lack of sleep or lack of good quality sleep can result in hormone imbalances.

Two key hormones impacted are ghrelin and leptin.

Leptin is responsible for the regulation of our appetite and metabolism. As we sleep our leptin levels increase, which results in our brain letting our body know we don’t need to feel hungry.

When we are lacking in quality sleep our body starts telling our brain that we don’t have enough energy and therefore our brain tells us we’re hungry resulting in gradual overeating (calorie surplus) and weight gain.

Ghrelin on the other hand does the opposite of leptin and stimulates our appetite.

It lets our brain know when we need to eat. During sleep, our ghrelin is decreased (because energy expenditure is less if we’re not awake) so when we are in a sleep deficient, our ghrelin levels are too high and the body believes it needs to consume more calories when in fact there is no calorie shortage.

Three tips for quality sleep

  1. Assess your sleep hygiene: sleep hygiene is the practices and habits that are necessary to have a good amount of sleep and sleep quality for daytime alertness. Are you going to bed at the same time every night? Are you decreasing screen time at least an hour prior to bed?
  2. Limiting alcohol (*gasp*): despite the popular belief that alcohol assists with falling asleep, alcohol is known to disrupt your sleep in the second half of the night as your body is working hard to process the alcohol. Not great for quality REM cycles.
  3. Meditate prior to bed: for many of us winding down can be difficult during our WFH set up. Meditation can assist with managing our cortisol (stress hormones) levels which can affect our quality of sleep.

Although it seems so easy, sleep is underrated in helping our body’s ability to adapt to mental stressors and changes we are dealing with (hello isolation!). For those who are finding it challenging to adapt to your lifestyle adjustments, try some of our tips above and use this as a starting point for organising the remainder of your daily hours!

By Fiona Bulbrook