I read something really interesting recently. It seems that a study of 1,000+ people, found that those who slept about 8 hours a night had lower BMIs, lower levels of ghrelin (a hormone that triggers appetite), and higher levels of leptin (a hormone that signals that the body is full) compared with those who slept only 5 hours nightly.

Restful sleep, it seems is important not only for weight control but also for overall health. While everyone occasionally has trouble sleeping, about 40 million Americans suffer chronic health problems due to long-term sleep deprivation.

Signs of a serious sleep disorder include fatigue/tiredness, headaches, anxiety, depression, memory changes, personality changes, as well as difficulty in losing weight.

As a chronic insomniac, I guess I am going to try harder to find a solution!

Sounds interesting that more sleep more weight loss, but what is the best fact behind that i don't understand, when we sleep for 8 hours then our body will be more relaxed and when we sleep for say about 5 hours then our digestive system is more active and need more food because in awaken condition we burn more calories then in sleep.

I think you might be right Clenbut. The knock on effect of losing sleep might have a knock on effect on the digestive system, or maybe it is as simple as the fact that if you are asleep you can't be eating! That sounds a bit simplistic, so I think that your idea is the best. It is quite amazing how everything has such an effect on everything else. Who would think that sleep could make a difference to weight, not me, anyway! I am not a good sleeper and I am overweight, so maybe I should be looking at what can be done to improve my sleep patterns?

Amanda it is clear that when we awake in night we feel hungry because our digestive juices just come out into the stomach and make the receptors active for the urge of hunger, so i think if we eat at that time we get more calories and it is a reason why we can lose weight while sleeping.

I did hear a doctor say the other day when they were asked if eating late at night made it more difficult to lose weight and the answer surprised me. He said that it really did not matter when in the day you ate, the amount of calories consumed in the day at whatever the time were the deciding factor. What he did say was that it was thought to be bad to eat at night because you might be less hungry in the morning and skip the very important meal that is breakfast.