Sleep yourself skinny?

Do you ever wake in fright from nightmares? How often? According to new research reported by Victoria University PhD candidate Fabian Elzo, 16% of Australians (that’s nearly 1 in 6 people) wake in fright from a nightmare once a week. Previous research across the world suggests the figures are closer to 4-10%. So, do Australians suffer more nightmares? Elzo’s study group were all students aged 18-34 years, and perhaps that skews the stats, but either way, imagine the number of people all over the world waking in fright on any given night, not knowing how to stop this from happening.

Are you surprised the figures are so high? Many suffer in silence, fearful that admitting to having nightmares might cast aspersions on their mental stability, or – worse – that talking about them may make them come true.

A nightmare is just a dream, but with an added shot of adrenalin. Many of our dreams process our unconscious fears, but the really graphic ones can stimulate our bodies to produce adrenalin (the fear hormone), and it’s that combination of graphic horror and real heart-pumping, creeping goose bumped, frozen panic, that wakes us up in fright.

I give tips on how to stop nightmares in the video clip (below) of today’s segment on Sunrise.

But I bet you’re waiting for the sleep yourself skinny bit, right? We chatted about this in today’s segment too. Recent research adds momentum to previous studies suggesting that disturbed sleep can disturb your metabolism, resulting in putting on weight. The new research suggests that people who regularly get only 4-5 hours sleep a night may experience disturbances of two important hormones – insulin and leptin.

Insulin normally controls your blood sugar and fat levels, and leptin helps control your appetite. This research suggests that only sleeping 4-5 hours most nights can result in your insulin storing more of your calories as fat instead of converting them into energy, while your leptin levels are so disturbed that you no longer get that full feeling when you eat, so you just keep on eating.

Can you sleep yourself skinny? No, but if you’re a short sleeper and you’ve been stacking on the fat, longer sleeps might redress the balance and you could well find yourself losing some of that extra padding.

If you really want to ‘sleep yourself skinny’, gather some dreams while you sleep and interpret them. Fat is often a bodymind issue, and dreams can reveal your unconscious emotional patterns and beliefs that are driving you to eat more, or to eat the wrong kind of food.

Food for thought. Sleep (well) on it.

(2019: Video clip no longer live.)

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