If you’ve ever felt hungry before bed or woken up hungry, you may know that sleep and hunger are closely linked. Let’s explore how your eating and sleeping habits influence each other.
How Sleep Affects Your Hunger
Yes, your sleep pattern does have an impact on how hungry you’ll feel. Your brain knows your body is hungry when it receives the hunger hormone, ghrelin. Your stomach creates this hormone and makes it travel up your bloodstream to the brain when your stomach is empty.
On the other hand, the hormone leptin, which gets released in your small intestine, helps you maintain your weight and body fat levels. It regulates your hunger by making you feel full.
But ghrelin and leptin also get impacted by your sleep. Research has shown that sleep deprivation can increase your desire for food, which can be linked to obesity. That’s because a lack of enough quality sleep can inhibit the regular production of ghrelin and leptin.
Is It Okay To Go To Bed Hungry?
But what happens when hunger strikes before you go to bed? Is it better to eat a snack to feel satiated before you rest, or is it better to skip the snack and go to bed despite feeling hungry?
Your most important priority should be to meet your nutrition requirements. If you’re going to bed hungry due to a lack of sufficient nutrition, this may affect your health. On the other hand, you may feel hungry if you’re following a healthy weight loss plan. Make sure to consult with your doctor to ensure your diet fits your particular health needs.
As long as you’re eating enough and meeting nutrition needs during the day, it’s okay to go to bed hungry. In fact, several studies have shown that there are risks associated with eating before going to bed.
For example, a 2017 study shows that eating close to when your body produces melatonin can increase your body fat percentage. Your body produces melatonin a few hours before it’s time to sleep. Another study from 2013 shows that eating within four hours of going to bed can make you eat more calories throughout your day.
However, if you can’t fall asleep because you’re too hungry, that won’t be good for your sleep, either! Consider finding ways to curb your hunger in the evening, including:
- Not skipping meals during the day
- Eating a filling dinner with a healthy balance of complex carbs, fats, and protein
- Portioning your snacks if you decide to eat in the evening
Don’t hesitate to seek out medical help if you believe you’re abnormally hungry in the evening.
Why Do I Wake Up Hungry?
If you wake up with some hunger or even feel hungry enough to feel dizzy, there may be a reason why. Not getting enough good sleep can raise your ghrelin levels and make you feel ravenous when you wake up.
But even if it sounds counterintuitive, eating before bed can make you feel hungrier when you wake up, too. Not only is eating at night less satiating than eating when you wake up in the morning, but overeating foods high in sugar or starch can make your blood sugar spike during the night. This spike in blood sugar tells your body to release insulin, which then makes your blood sugar drop and makes you wake up hungry.
Apart from limiting your evening snacks, getting a good night’s sleep is one of the best ways to avoid waking up hungry. Sign up for the BetterSleep app to start using tools like meditation, relaxing sounds, bedtime stories, and more.
