After food it's now healthy sleeping habits that are said to affect body fat. A recent study reveals that women with consistent sleep timings have less body fat compared to those who experience irregular sleep timings.
The study was conducted by a group of researchers from Brigham Young University, Utah, led by Dr. Bruce Bailey. The three major takeaways of the study are: Consistent bed timing especially wake up time affects body weight or rather results in less body fat. Sleeping less than 6.5-8.5 hours leads to higher body fat and quality of sleep affects body composition.
Bailey and his team mates examined the sleep routines of 300 women from two major U.S. universities over a week. The women who consistently maintained same sleep timings everyday were found to have less body weight.
"We have these internal clocks and throwing them off and not allowing them to get into a pattern does have an impact on our physiology," said Bailey, reports nature world.
The participants were given an activity trackers where they had to put down details of their daily movements and their bed timings. The volunteers were mostly aged between 17 and 26.
The researchers tracked down the daily schedules of the participants including their sleep routines and found that the females who maintained regular sleep timings had less body fat. The women with sleep timing difference of more than 90 minutes were detected with higher body fat as compared to the women having timing variations of less than 60 minutes.
Irregular sleeping patterns affect our physical activities and also influence the hormones responsible for proper food intake. Improper food consumption leads to higher body fat.
Alongside the timings the amount of sleep one gets or rather the time effectively spent on sleeping affects body fat, reveals the study findings published online in the American Journal of Health Promotion
People who get more than 8-8.5 hours of effective sleep have lowest body weight. Most of the students tend to compromise on hours spent on sleeping and end up developing higher body weight.
"Sleep is often a casualty of trying to do more and be better and it is often sacrificed, especially by college students, who kind of wear it as a badge of honor," Bailey said in a statement. The researchers have also suggested a few methods to get better sleep like exercising, cooler room temperature, having peaceful environment, a dark room, and using beds only for sleeping.