John Meni Sleep, stress management and exercise are 3 of the 6 central pillars in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases. They are correlated, so we need to address them together.
Sleep deprivation leads to a decrease in leptin levels and an increase in ghrelin and orexin levels, causing greater appetite and resulting in weight gain. Weight. Poor quality sleep also increases sympathetic activity, decreasing energy expenditure and physical activity. In this situation, there is also an increase in cortisol concentrations, contributing to insulin resistance. See how everything is interconnected?
The Sleep Research Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommend that adults aged 18-60 years regularly get 7 hours or more of sleep per night to promote physical and mental well-being. What I perceive in the consultations is that there is a compensation on the weekend of the sleep deprivation that occurs during the work week, but what the evidence shows us about this behavior is that the recurrent insufficient sleep even after the recovery of sleep at the end week, is related to weight gain, increased energy intake from snacks after dinner and reduced insulin sensitivity. The study was published later this year, and shows that this method of compensating for sleep recovery over the weekend followed by insufficient sleep over the days of the week promotes a delay in the circadian cycle, resulting in negative health consequences.
My conduct in these cases is to work on sleep hygiene. The routine of the night is always as important as the routine of the day, so it is necessary to create habits such as disconnecting from electronic equipment such as cell phone, television, tablet, notebook, 1 hour before bed, and prefer relaxing activities such as reading a book , listen to calming music, do some manual work and avoid naps in the afternoon or at unusual times. The use of some calming and floral teas can help a lot in this process too.
Physical inactivity is also becoming an increasing problem in modern society. Exercise is known to have a number of positive health benefits and is effective in the primary prevention of 35 chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes mellitus, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer.
Regular exercise results in a series of adaptive responses that contribute to your positive health benefits. Although many of these adaptations are seen mainly in skeletal muscle, exercise also has positive effects on other tissues. All body organic systems are affected both by occasional episodes of exercise and by long-term physical activity programs.
The improvement of cardiovascular function with physical training contributes to the increase in aerobic capacity and the protective effects of exercise on the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The increase in oxidative capacity specifically in the heart plays an important role in this response.
In skeletal muscle, resistance training leads to substantial effects on energy metabolism, as well as effects on the liver and adipose tissue . For example, oxidative capacity is an independent predictor of the abundance of liver fat in humans, which is important because the prevalence of non-alcoholic liver fat is increasing in parallel with obesity. In addition, resistance exercise training reduces human liver fat, even in the absence of weight loss, which is believed to be driven by mitochondrial biogenesis in hepatocytes that increases their ability to oxidize lipids.
Already cognitive function and brain health are also influenced by exercise in humans, and this is particularly relevant for healthy aging . Emerging evidence also suggests that exercise influences the intestinal microbiome, which has emerged as an important metabolism modulator in health and disease.
