Study finds sleeping in may lead to faster weight loss

*Bins alarm*

Beauty Crew Beauty Writer / July 30 2020

Sometimes there is absolutely nothing better than turning off your alarm on a Saturday and sleeping well into the day. And why wouldn’t you? The daily Monday to Friday grind can be a struggle, causing you to lose hours of much-needed sleep.

In fact, recent research conducted by Nourished Life found that only five per cent of Australians are sleeping soundly every night, with 65 per cent struggling with sleep deprivation, 35 per cent suffering from memory loss and a worrying 20 per cent saying they often felt it was unsafe for them to drive as a result.

Although we don’t need an excuse to turn over and snuggle under our doona for an extra couple of hours, there is actually a legitimately good reason to catch up on your zzz’s this weekend.

Emerging research published in the journal Sleep compared the sleeping habits of 2,156 adults to their body mass indexes (BMI), which measures how healthy your weight is in relation to your height, and found that those who slept too little during the week but caught up on the weekends had slightly lower BMI’s (22.8) than those who didn’t catch up on sleep over the weekend (23.1). While the difference in average BMI isn’t huge, it is significant as every hour of extra sleep on the weekend equated to a 0.12 lower BMI.

It is believed that this BMI difference is because those who sleep longer on the weekends subsequently sleep more hours in total, which reduces the chance of those individuals suffering from disrupted hormones and metabolism. Additionally, those who sleep more and sleep well are considered to have a better chance of making healthy life choices such as eating better and exercising regularly.

While we love nothing more than the thought of staying in bed all day on a cold winter’s day, it is important to ensure you don’t throw off your body’s natural circadian rhythm by clocking too much shut-eye. As a general rule, you should strive for between seven and nine hours of sleep each night for optimum health and wellbeing.

Is your skin suffering from the effects of a bad night’s sleep? Then check out our tips on how to fake your way to looking bright eyed and well-rested.

Do you have a Holy Grail product that makes you look wide awake each morning? If so, let us know in the comment section below.

Image credit: @romeestrijd

Kate started working for BEAUTYcrew in early 2016, first as a contributor, and was then named Beauty Writer in 2017. She loves picking the brains of the industry's top experts to get to the bottom of beauty's toughest questions. Bronze eyeshadow palettes are her weakness and she's forever on the hunt for the perfect nude nail polish to suit her fair skin. Her words can also be found in Men's Health magazine, and she now works in PR.

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