Dr. Matt Walker

That feeling better notion is sleep acting as this emotional bomb that just soothes those jagged edges that we've

you know, be sort of almost like a CD getting scratched.

If anyone out there knows what a CD is these days, but you know, these scratches that we get, emotional wounds, sleep is starting to heal those as well.

So those are benefits.

I could also mention some other aspects of your weight control and your weight gain.

And this is a

huge, huge effect size.

Sleep moves the needle on almost every aspect of brain and body health.

I think it's very clear at this stage that there is no single tissue or major physiological system in your body and no operation of your mind that isn't wonderfully enhanced by sleep when you get it or demonstrably impaired when you don't get enough.

But when it comes to appetite and regulation of weight gain, this is immense.

Firstly, what we know is that when you're getting sufficient sleep, you can create a nice concentration ratio of two appetite regulating hormones called leptin and ghrelin.

And let me go sort of in the reverse to probably give you a better example.

Let me say I deprive you of sleep.

And what we see is that these two hormones that, and I joke, they sometimes sound like leptin and ghrelin sound like hobbits from Lord of the Rings, but they're not, they're real hormones.

And leptin essentially is the signal that tells your brain, okay, you're satiated by your food, you're full and you don't want to eat more.

So hunger and appetite decrease.

Ghrelin does the opposite.

When ghrelin increases, now it's the signal of hunger and you get increasingly unsatisfied despite eating a full meal.

If you've got still high levels of ghrelin, you don't feel satisfied with that meal.

And many people listening may start to say, I have this feeling where I'm just eating and I just don't feel satisfied on some days.