Sleeping less makes you eat more — but not because you're hungrier
Effects of experimental sleep restriction on caloric intake and activity energy expenditure.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Sleep restriction increased caloric intake by 559 kcal/day without changing leptin or ghrelin levels.
Prior research and popular belief suggest sleep loss spikes ghrelin and drops leptin, making you hungrier. This study found no such hormonal changes despite clear overeating.
Practical Takeaways
If you're trying to manage weight, prioritize sleep—not just diet and exercise. Even 8 days of modest sleep loss led to over 500 extra daily calories.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Sleep restriction increased caloric intake by 559 kcal/day without changing leptin or ghrelin levels.
Prior research and popular belief suggest sleep loss spikes ghrelin and drops leptin, making you hungrier. This study found no such hormonal changes despite clear overeating.
Practical Takeaways
If you're trying to manage weight, prioritize sleep—not just diet and exercise. Even 8 days of modest sleep loss led to over 500 extra daily calories.
Publication
Journal
Chest
Year
2013
Authors
Andrew D Calvin, R. Carter, T. Adachi, P. Macedo, F. Albuquerque, C. van der Walt, Jan Bukartyk, Diane E. Davison, J. Levine, V. Somers
Related Content
Claims (4)
If you don’t get enough sleep for 8 days, your hunger hormones don’t change much—so if you end up eating more, it’s probably not because these hormones are telling you to.
If you cut your sleep down to just two-thirds of what you normally get for eight days straight, you’ll likely eat about 559 extra calories a day without moving more—this could be why people who don’t sleep enough tend to gain weight.
When people don’t get enough sleep for eight days, they don’t end up moving more to burn off the extra calories they eat—so they’re likely to gain weight just from eating more, not from being lazy.
If you don’t get enough sleep just one night, your body makes more of the hunger hormone and less of the fullness hormone, which might make you feel hungrier the next day.