How many calories do you burn while you’re asleep? The act of burning calories is directionally proportionate to the amount of energy that is used up while performing a task. According to this fact, no matter what you do you, you will use up energy and burn calories. Digesting food, breathing, and even sleeping uses the energy in our body and burns calories.
The process takes a healthy part in losing weight as well; however, it is not something to be counted as exercise and to be dependent upon. Read on to find out everything there is to know about the burning calories during sleeping.
Does Sleeping Actually Burn Calories, or is it A Myth?
Our body cells have mitochondria which are the powerhouse of the cell. It stores energy that is used up in all kinds’ activities that we do. The process of losing weight is similar to this concept where a certain amount of calories are taken in and some are burned.
While sleeping the human body breathes in heavier and continues pumping blood and oxygen all throughout the body. The positions that we change during sleeping also take up energy and eventually burn a few calories.
Our brain is actually the most active when we are sleeping, it needs to take care of our subconscious which we can see usually in our dreams, it helps the dead cells replace in our body, and the brain needs to make sure that we do not miss a heartbeat in the whole process. All these activities take up energy and hence, burn calories in our body.
Calories Burned Sleeping Calculator?
If you are tracking your food and your calories then you would want to track the number of calories burned in while you sleep as well.
The process of calculation depends on the weight and the amount of sleep you get. For every pound, a person burns about 0.42 calories in an hour. To find out the total, you need to multiply your weight in pounds with 0.42 and you will get the result for one hour. Multiply the answer with the number of hours that you have spent sleeping. The result is the number of calories that you have managed to burn during one cycle of sleep.
Calories burned while sleeping = 0.42 x Weight in pounds x no. of hours you sleep
Keep in mind that these calculations are very tentative and may vary from person to person as well.
Can You Increase how many Calories do you Burn while you’re asleep?
There are several tricks and tips that you can follow to help in burning a few extra calories while you are sleeping. Follow these for results
- A person with a higher metabolism will have the advantage of having more calories burned when they are in deep sleep. To increase your metabolism, it is ideal to eat small frequent meals throughout the day instead of eating three or four full meals. The body will constantly run and the system will eventually increase.
- Never go to bed hungry! When you are hungry for a long time, your body tends to go into the starvation mode. In this mode, your body will slow down your metabolism process so that the energy is preserved. Hence, you will not lose many calories.
- Do not eat heavy during before going to bed as well. As much as being hungry is not recommended, having a fat snack is also not enough. You do not want your body to be working on digesting your food all night instead of recharging you.
- Keep your exercise routine. You do not want to increase your metabolism without making your muscles strong enough. Make sure to take plenty of exercises all through the day so that body remains in running mode during sleeping as well which will help to increase the energy consumption. Keep in mind to never over workout yourself since that can be hazardous to your health and your sleep as well. Extra workouts can cause a hormone to be released into the body that does not allow the body to rest and recharge for the next day.
- People who have muscles in their body are most likely to increase the process of burning calories. The more the body fat, the less energy you will be consuming. Since muscles reply on energy consumption to survive, your body will be losing calories all the time instead of only when you are asleep.
How Does Drinking Water Help In The Process?
Water is an essential part of the human body. The body is made from 70% water which helps in detoxifying the system. This detoxification is important to remove the waste from the body and to keep it clean and help it remain cool during different processes like digestion.
The metabolism of the body increases with the right amount of water. Drinking a glass before bed allows the system to cool down from the processes. Just like pouring cool water on a grill after a barbecue is important to cool it down, the water acts as a cooling agent to the body and helps in repairing the body cells easier. The better system allows more calories to burn easily throughout the night.
How Does Weight Loss Contribute To Sleep Consumption Of Energy?
The right way to lose weight is to eat healthily and eat in a portion-controlled systematic way. A person using this method will find out that every single calorie they burn is important. The best way to track this is to write it down or put it into a calorie counter.
A healthy person can eat up to 1500 calories a day and the minimum amount should be about 1200 calories. Making a habit to burn at least 150 calories a day will help in eating with a more free approach and having to eat much better food. When you follow different steps to increase your metabolism, you will find calories to burn more while you are sleeping and you can lose weight faster. However, it is to be kept in mind that this is not a way of losing weight entirely, it is just an advantage.
Also read: Sleeping After Eating, Good or Bad?
How Do People With Muscles Constantly Lose Calories While Sleeping?
Building muscles help in losing weight because muscles use up more energy than body mass or body fat does. Once you have made muscles, you are consuming a lot more energy than an average person does. Muscles require excessive energy to survive which makes it fine to burn calories while sleeping as well as working out.
Building muscles will also help in keeping you fit and fine and will allow the body to revive from a day shock much more easily than usual.
Things The Body Does While Sleeping That Burn Calories
If the body is consuming energy while sleeping, it is doing a lot of things which help in burning those calories. The following are a few things that the body necessarily does while you are sleeping. Each thing requires energy usage from the body
Cell replacement
The worn out cells and tissues in the body are revived when we are sleeping. The reason behind this is that when we sleep, the brain has to focus on the internal body system only and not something that we do during the day. The focal point hence becomes the replacement of the worn out parts of the body and making the immune system stronger. It is almost like recharging the body.
Breathing
While you are sleeping, your brain needs to make sure that in no way is there any compromise in losing a heartbeat or a breath. The constant pumping of blood and acquiring oxygen also burns calories. The brain also ensures that necessary measures are taken in case of a mishap. For example, sometimes we wake up coughing because we were close to choking in our sleep.
Tossing and turning
Even though we are dead asleep, our body ensures that we are constantly comfortable, or the blood flow in one end is not restricted. Hence, we tend to toss and turn all night without even knowing it. For this process, we require energy which our body consumes while we are sleeping.
Does Sleeping In The Cold Burn More Calories?
Yes, sleeping in the cold burns relatively more calories than usual. All the functions that our body performs create heat energy which is then released or we are cooled down with sweat or otherwise. However, if you are in a cooler environment, you will need to make your body warm first and then continue with all the procedure. It may not burn a huge sum of calories, but it will burn a little extra.
The same is the case with drinking cold water; the temperature of the water needs to rise before the body starts using it, which is why a little extra is burned in the process.
There are several books that have supported the idea of sleeping the cold to help in reducing much more than sleeping in the warm will help you.
Conclusion
Contrary to popular belief, our body is actually the most active when it is asleep. The brain has far more responsibilities when we go to sleep which is why; most energy is consumed at that time.
Over time, there have been umpteenth research studies about how important sleep is for weight loss and to be healthy. All the thesis have been proved with the facts that the body tends to work and release energy while it is sleeping so that it can recharge for the coming day.
In the end, make sure to remember that an optimum eight hours of sleep is important but oversleeping actually slows your metabolism and causes reversal reactions in the body. The body tends to save calories because it does not know when you will be collecting them again.
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