The Surprising Science of How Sleep Affects Metabolism - And How Lark’s Digital Coach Can Help You Reach Your Goals

In this article:

• Diet and exercise may come to mind first when you’re ready to lose weight and manage your health, but sleep has a major impact on metabolism.
• Sleep is essential for normalizing hunger and satisfaction hormones, managing cravings more effectively, and supporting healthier blood sugar levels. 
• Skipping sleep can raise blood pressure, interfere with muscle recovery and a strong immune system, and interfere with fat metabolism.
• Getting enough sleep also helps you feel better, think more clearly, and be more energized for the day - letting you make smart decisions and stay active for better health results. 
• Lark’s sleep coaching can guide you towards better sleep hygiene for improved results. 
• Lark can support you 24/7 as you make healthy choices to lose weight and manage blood sugar, blood pressure, or other conditions with or without GLP-1s. 

Ready to lose weight and achieve your health goals? Check your sleep! It’s not just down-time for metabolism - it’s the opposite!

Diet and exercise are front-line approaches to achieving weight goals and managing chronic health conditions, but sleep is foundational. More than just a luxury or a break between days, sleep affects metabolism, with effects on hunger, blood sugar, muscle repair, immune function, cognition, and energy levels. 

If you want to get the most from your efforts to eat right and stay active, take a few minutes to think about sleep. Keep reading to learn how sleep affects metabolism, why it’s essential for optimal health, and how Lark can support better sleep. 

Sleep and Hunger

Does it seem like sleeping is a waste of time when trying to lose weight - that resting quietly doesn’t help your calorie balance? Think again!

• Even one night of short sleep can make weight loss harder. First, there are effects on hormones. 
• Ghrelin increases. Ghrelin is a hunger hormone. When levels increase, you feel hungrier - even though your body doesn’t actually need more calories. Eating more calories when you don’t actually need more fuel is a quick way to challenge weight goals.
• Leptin decreases. Leptin is a hormone that helps you feel more satisfied. When it’s lower, you don’t feel as full for as long. Your brain is more likely to tell you that you want to eat again even if you don’t normally eat that soon after a meal.

Along with tracking sleep, Lark can guide you towards choosing more filling foods - so that if you are extra hungry from being short on sleep, you can choose low-calorie, filling foods that won’t get in the way of your weight loss goals. 

Sleep and Blood Sugar

Getting good sleep every night isn’t just about comfort. It’s about health! Even one night of short sleep, for example, can increase insulin resistance, so your body’s less able to manage blood sugar. The day after being short on sleep, even healthy adults show signs of poor blood sugar management - similar to if they had prediabetes. You might feel effects like swings in energy and hunger, or you might not feel these effects - but they can have long-term effects. 

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Lark can help you manage sleep and blood sugar, whether you have normal blood sugar, have blood sugar in the prediabetes range, or are managing diabetes. When you log sleep with Lark, you can see your trends, aim for consistent, adequate sleep, and learn how sleep, blood sugar, and healthy choices all interact. 

Sleep and Repair and Recovery

Metabolism is about more than burning calories and managing blood sugar - and sleep is about more than that, too. One critical function of sleep is to support your body’s recovery response, including for muscles and your immune system. 

• Released During Sleep - gh/testosterone, antiinflammatory cytokines
• Target (muscles/tissues, immune system)
• Function - increased metabolic rate, strength, function; immune function

Lark helps you stay on track - not only with nutritious eating and muscle-strengthening activities to support strong muscles and a strong immune system, but also with sleep to keep your body at its best. 

Sleep and Stress Management

Everyone has stress - and many of us have too much, poorly managed, stress. Add sleep deprivation to the mix, and the effects of stress can be overwhelming. Cortisol is an example of a stress hormone that gets even higher with sleep deprivation. Effects can include reduced fat burning and poorer blood glucose control. 

Lifestyle changes like adding physical activity and choosing nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods instead of sugar-sweetened and ultra-processed foods can help manage stress. Lark can also suggest other techniques like deep breathing and - you guessed it - adequate sleep! Use Lark not only to build habits around healthy eating and physical activity, but also around consistent sleep schedules and a bedtime routine to help you get more - and better - shuteye. 

Sleep Deprivation and Ability to Make Healthy Choices

Another way that sleep can make weight loss and healthy living harder is by interfering with thought processes in your brain - challenging your ability to make sound decisions. As an example, consider a common situation like the following:

• You go to bed late after working a long day, eating dinner out, and watching a movie. The next day is a work day, so you get up early - meaning you didn’t get enough sleep last night. Throughout the day, you make the following choices.
• You sleep as late as possible because you’re tired, so you skip your morning walk. 
• You rush in the morning, having a handful of cereal and leaving home without packing a lunch. 
• You add sugar and creamer to your coffee to recharge energy (but crash when the sugar wears off).
• You have pizza for lunch because the company bought it and you’re too tired to walk down the street to a salad and sandwich shop.
• When you’re hungry soon after, you have chips from the vending machine. 

Lifestyle changes come down to choices - but it’s hard to make smart choices when you’re short on sleep! Sleep is necessary for keeping an area of your brain called the prefrontal cortex working at its best. Sleep deprivation interferes with your ability to think, plan, and manage impulses. You’re more likely to skip workouts, cave into cravings, and make last-minute decisions - none of which are good for health and weight loss!

Lark is always there for you - so when willpower is low and you’re having a tough time planning ahead, you can talk to Lark. Get ideas for what to eat and how to work out to your ability, and find motivation for getting through the day with Lark. Plus, when you keep logging with Lark, you can remember to be on high alert if you’re low on sleep so you know which pitfalls to avoid!

Reaching your weight, blood sugar, or blood pressure goals isn't about pushing your body to the brink of exhaustion. True, lasting health starts by giving your metabolism the overnight fuel it needs to thrive.

Lark Can Help

Ready to see how improving your sleep can unlock your weight loss and health goals? Lark’s digital coach can help you manage sleep for better metabolism and results on your health journey. Your Lark coach is available 24/7 for encouragement, nutrition and physical activity coaching, and habit tracking. Lark can help you make healthy choices and establish habits that fit into your lifestyle so you can lose weight and keep it off with or without GLP-1 medications. 

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Click here to see if you may be eligible to join Lark today!

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