Jan 21 2025 2 mins 3
If your goal for the year is to eat healthier and exercise more, you might want to focus first on getting some shut-eye.
Research suggests that getting a good night’s rest can make it easier to stick to daily diet and exercise goals.
American Heart Association researchers studied 125 adults who were classified as overweight or having obesity during a yearlong weight-loss program. The program included group sessions and daily calorie-intake goals.
The researchers evaluated participants’ sleep habits at the beginning, middle, and end of the program using a sleep diary, a wrist-worn sleep tracker, and patient questionnaires. Each participant was evaluated on various sleep measures, including regularity, alertness, timing, efficiency, duration, and satisfaction.
They were then assigned a sleep score from zero to six based on their sleep habits, earning one point for each good sleep measure.
Results showed that those with better sleep habits were more likely to follow their daily calorie intake and exercise goals compared with those with who didn’t sleep as well. Participants who slept better also attended more group sessions.
The superior sleepers attended 79% of group sessions in the first six months of the study and 62% in the second half. They met their daily calorie goals 36% of the time in the first half of the study and 21% of the time in the second half.
So, if cramming in gym sessions and dieting has you abandoning your resolutions in the first few weeks of the year, you might first concentrate on getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep.
Prioritize your sleep goals, and the healthier lifestyle might just follow.
