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You want to lose a few pounds. You're cutting your calories, watching your fat grams, working out more. All well and good. But have you also considered going to sleep? Probably not, but sleep researchers are now saying that if you want to lose weight, getting some more shuteye may be just what you need.

"Sleep loss is associated with striking alterations in hormone levels that regulate the appetite and may be a contributing factor to obesity," says Michael Thorpy, MD, director of the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "Anyone making a commitment to lose weight should probably consider a parallel commitment to getting more sleep."

Recently there have been a series of studies showing a relationship between sleep loss and increased weight.

In January 2005, researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine that total sleep time tended to decrease as body weight increased. The difference in total sleep time between normal and overweight people was only 16 minutes per day.

Two 2004 studies in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that sleeping four to five hours a night causes hormone changes that lead to an increase in hunger. Another study presented at an obesity conference in November 2004 showed that obese people were more likely to sleep less than seven hours a night.

Sleep Affects Hormones

The body's hormones have a 24-hour rhythm, says Joyce Walsleben, PhD, director of the Sleep Disorder Center at the New York University School of Medicine, and author of A Woman's Guide to Sleep: Guaranteed Solutions for a Good Night's Rest. "When you disrupt sleep, you disrupt your hormones," she says. "You become glucose intolerant, you want to eat more, and you don't metabolize what you eat as well."

This hormonal disruption can lead not only to weight gain, Walsleben says, but also to an increased risk of developing diabetes.

"When we're young, we think we can get by on little -- or even no -- sleep at all," says Walsleben. "That's just not true. We all have to plan our life around getting enough sleep."

There are 10 main reasons why you may not be sleeping well, says Walsleben:

• Stress or anxiety
• Illness
• Noise
• Light
• An over committed schedule
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Stimulant medications (such as diet pills, cold and allergy remedies, asthma medications)
• Depression or anger
• Fear

To get a better night's sleep, you need to strengthen your natural sleep patterns, says Walsleben, who suggests the "Four Rs of Sleep," so named by Joan Shaver, PhD, RN, professor and dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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