By Emily Kohler, Dietetic Intern What do you do when you’re run down from a long week? Apparently, my answer is to write a blog post about sleep. There’s no better way to recognize your problems than to disseminate information about them, right? Why we need sleep:
I think the best way to answer this is by just simply reflecting on how we feel when we sleep less and when we sleep more. If we didn’t need it, wouldn’t we feel like spring chickens after 4 hours of sleep instead of feeling like an entire day is one big blur? To be more scientific, researchers have come to the conclusion that sleep simply helps the brain do damage control and clean up the mess that is created by its use throughout the day; it helps the brain get rid of waste that’s accumulated during waking hours. More sleep means more time to get rid of everything that can hurt our health. While cleaning up the brain is important, less sleep also causes reduced attention, memory, and general cognitive function. We need sleep to be productive human beings that have a clear head, ready to attack the work or school day. We lack energy physically and mentally without sleep, and this makes it that much harder to balance our diets and sustain physical activity. Sleep and nutrition: On little sleep, we can definitely have a balanced diet and can definitely work, but we are absolutely making it much harder on ourselves to do so. In terms of exercise, finding the energy to do it at all, especially when lacking sleep, is not always easy. In terms of healthful intake, our body is actually working against us via hormones when we don’t get enough sleep: the hormone leptin, which inhibits hunger, is suppressed and the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates hunger, is increased. In plain English, we are hungrier with less sleep. To add, it has been shown that humans crave higher fat and higher carbohydrate foods with less sleep. This week, I would like to challenge readers to try just three things:
While there are many other things we could be doing, they might not suit the starting point for sustaining your new habit. Remember, you are not going to meet all of these recommendations all of the time, but you can meet them some of the time. That is an incredible improvement! Move on when you’re ready.
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ABOUTTerps With Taste is run by the Student Nutritionist Team with University of Maryland Dining Services. We write content for students, by students. Enjoy! Categories
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