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Poor sleep results in stress, and to relieve stress, eating is a good remedy. Good in the sense that it seems to work, but it's not healthy. Doing a short worko

Poor sleep results in stress, and to relieve stress, eating is a good remedy. Good in the sense that it seems to work, but it's not healthy. Doing a short workout is probably a lot healthier, but well, you're tired, and doing a workout is not high on the list for most of us.

ep103 11y ago
During sleep is also when your body prepares fat / food to convert into blood sugar. You literally get tired at the end of the day, when you run out of energy that's easily convertible to blood sugar, so your blood sugar levels start dropping, making you tired. If you don't get enough sleep at night, your body doesn't have enough time to prep your food / fat for conversion into blood sugar. As a result, your blood sugar starts dropping way too early in the day. Since your blood sugar is dropping too far, but its too early to go to sleep, your body looks for other solutions, basically: "Get your blood sugar up now!" So you feel a desire to eat, and often, foods your body associates with either high amounts of calories and simple sugars. Hence, munchies. And weight gain. Source: I'm hypoglycemic, this is my life. Slight disclaimers as to the specifics of the above, but the processes described are correct.
- JPKab 11y ago
  Thanks for breaking that down so well.
- gotchange 11y ago
  and based on diet and the amount of food to be consumed, this could lead the person to feel a bit sleepy to take a quick nap/siesta just to recover and feel refreshed again and replenishing blood sugar levels in the process. The nature knows how to get its way with all of us =)
- gohrt 11y ago
  By that logic, we should sleep instead of eating breakfast.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    There's no logic about breakfast beside being told by Kellogg's to eat it, so there's that.
  - BurningFrog 11y ago
    The most important sleep of the day!
  - ep103 11y ago
    Only if this was the entire picture of how your body handled food : )
- bcheung 11y ago
  Where are you getting this? This doesn't seem accurate. Can you cite some references to this? What do you mean by preparing to convert? What specifically is there more / less of that makes it easier to convert fat / food into blood sugar. Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose whenever they are present in the body. The liver does this through the process of glycolysis. It doesn't have anything to do with sleep. In fact, when people are sleeping they are fasting for about 8 hours (hence break-fast). When glucose is present in the blood stream insulin is released to store the energy in the cells. Insulin also inhibits fat release. The low energy crash you are referring to is only present in people who have heavy carb diets. Under a healthy individual 2 pathways are used to produce energy in the absence of food. Gluconeogenesis converts protein and a little bit of fat into glucose. The amounts are usually pretty minimal though. Ketogenesis is when the body converts fat to ketones which the body consumes for energy instead of glucose. For people who are diabetic, overweight, or normally eat carb heavy diets the ketogenic pathway is impaired and so they feel low energy. People who have properly functioning ketogenic pathways don't really experience the low energy state you are referring to unless it is the food comma after a carb heavy meal when insulin has overreacted. When insulin is low and there are ketones present in the body people will not feel low energy.
agumonkey 11y ago
45 min of walk, bonus point for small hills. I need to burn my chair.
groby_b 11y ago
Having had more tired workouts than any person should endure: It's not a good choice, either. When you're tired, your injury risk is significantly higher. You have less fine motor control, muscles/tendons are still fairly cold, and your brain is in a slight haze. If you can, go back to sleep.
- poikniok 11y ago
  Why have you had so many such workouts? Military?
  - groby_b 11y ago
    No, I made the mistake to pursue a professional dancing career in parallel to a career as software engineer. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm sure glad to be done with it :)

ep103 11y ago

During sleep is also when your body prepares fat / food to convert into blood sugar. You literally get tired at the end of the day, when you run out of energy that's easily convertible to blood sugar, so your blood sugar levels start dropping, making you tired. If you don't get enough sleep at night, your body doesn't have enough time to prep your food / fat for conversion into blood sugar. As a result, your blood sugar starts dropping way too early in the day. Since your blood sugar is dropping too far, but its too early to go to sleep, your body looks for other solutions, basically: "Get your blood sugar up now!" So you feel a desire to eat, and often, foods your body associates with either high amounts of calories and simple sugars. Hence, munchies. And weight gain. Source: I'm hypoglycemic, this is my life. Slight disclaimers as to the specifics of the above, but the processes described are correct.

JPKab 11y ago
Thanks for breaking that down so well.
gotchange 11y ago
and based on diet and the amount of food to be consumed, this could lead the person to feel a bit sleepy to take a quick nap/siesta just to recover and feel refreshed again and replenishing blood sugar levels in the process. The nature knows how to get its way with all of us =)
gohrt 11y ago
By that logic, we should sleep instead of eating breakfast.
- tdkl 11y ago
  There's no logic about breakfast beside being told by Kellogg's to eat it, so there's that.
- BurningFrog 11y ago
  The most important sleep of the day!
- ep103 11y ago
  Only if this was the entire picture of how your body handled food : )
bcheung 11y ago
Where are you getting this? This doesn't seem accurate. Can you cite some references to this? What do you mean by preparing to convert? What specifically is there more / less of that makes it easier to convert fat / food into blood sugar. Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose whenever they are present in the body. The liver does this through the process of glycolysis. It doesn't have anything to do with sleep. In fact, when people are sleeping they are fasting for about 8 hours (hence break-fast). When glucose is present in the blood stream insulin is released to store the energy in the cells. Insulin also inhibits fat release. The low energy crash you are referring to is only present in people who have heavy carb diets. Under a healthy individual 2 pathways are used to produce energy in the absence of food. Gluconeogenesis converts protein and a little bit of fat into glucose. The amounts are usually pretty minimal though. Ketogenesis is when the body converts fat to ketones which the body consumes for energy instead of glucose. For people who are diabetic, overweight, or normally eat carb heavy diets the ketogenic pathway is impaired and so they feel low energy. People who have properly functioning ketogenic pathways don't really experience the low energy state you are referring to unless it is the food comma after a carb heavy meal when insulin has overreacted. When insulin is low and there are ketones present in the body people will not feel low energy.

agumonkey 11y ago

45 min of walk, bonus point for small hills. I need to burn my chair.

groby_b 11y ago

Having had more tired workouts than any person should endure: It's not a good choice, either. When you're tired, your injury risk is significantly higher. You have less fine motor control, muscles/tendons are still fairly cold, and your brain is in a slight haze. If you can, go back to sleep.

poikniok 11y ago
Why have you had so many such workouts? Military?
- groby_b 11y ago
  No, I made the mistake to pursue a professional dancing career in parallel to a career as software engineer. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm sure glad to be done with it :)