Fit Talk

By Ann Hettinger , Ann Hettinger a freelance health writer and adjunct professor of magazine journalism at Syracuse University.

Is a good night’s sleep the first thing you sacrifice when life gets too full and busy? If so, this is your wake-up call: You’re not just sabotaging your next day’s performance (news to none of us), but you’re actually harming your health. “Sleep deprivation is a serious medical risk, but few people are aware of that,” says Joyce Walsleben, PhD, an associate professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine. “You have to pay as much attention to your sleep as you do to eating a nutritious diet.” A spate of studies is turning up clear links between inadequate sleep and obesity, as well as several related conditions: heart disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes. For example, people who typically get fewer than 7 hours of shut-eye per night are more likely to be obese than their well-rested peers, according to an analysis of almost 7,000 people enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. “Sleeping less and weighing more are two of the most obvious social trends over the past century,” says Eric Olson, MD, codirector of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. “The less you sleep the more likely you are to be overweight.” The good news is that with adequate shut-eye, these conditions may be reversible, our experts say. Drawing on studies about what robs us of quality sleep, they have devised strategies that can help you get the rest you need. Here’s a lineup of the most insidious sleep thieves–and the latest recommendations on how to bar them from your bedroom forever.

Sleep Thief #1: An Overactive Mind

The reason you sometimes obsess over a tricky work project or an argument with your best friend when you’re trying to fall asleep: You can’t refocus your thinking at the edge of slumber the same way you can when you’re alert, says Colleen E. Carney, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Insomnia and Sleep Research Program at Duke University Medical Center. “People have little control over their thoughts, because they may be going in and out of a light stage of sleep, even though they think they’re awake,” Carney says.

Rest easy When fretful, get up and go to another part of the house (but leave the lights off). “Your anxious thoughts will usually stop right away. Then you can go back to bed and fall asleep,” Carney says. This well-studied strategy, called stimulus control, also prevents you from associating your bed with anxiety. Another tip: Set aside time early in the evening to problem solve. Write down your pressing concerns, along with a possible solution for each, a few hours before retiring.

Sleep Thief #2 Weekend Sleep-Ins

Late nights followed by extra sack time the next morning throw off your internal clock, which is controlled by a cluster of nerve cells in the brain that also regulate appetite and body temperature, says Lawrence Epstein, MD, medical director of Sleep HealthCenters in Brighton, MA, and author of The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep. When Sunday rolls around, you’re reprogrammed to stay up past your bedtime, and you feel like a zombie on Monday morning.

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