SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new study found people who added more sleep to their nightly routine burned more calories.
A Journal of the American Medical Association study followed 80 adults who got less than 6.5 hours of sleep a night. Over a two week span, they intentionally added more sleep to their total and results showed the participants burned 270 more calories each night. The study determined good sleep practices could be an intervention for obesity and weight loss programs.
ABC10 Health Expert Dr. Tom Hopkins said although the findings could make you consider sleeping the pounds away, that's not all it takes.
"If you want to be able to allow your body to recover from stress hormones which promote weight, then you need that additional sleep to help do that," Hopkins said. "The sleep also decreases inflammation and we know that a lot of the damage is caused by gaining weight, and stress creates hormones that cause inflammation, so it's really all about inflammation."
He said a good amount of sleep also has to be paired with diet and exercise, if you want to see true results.
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