Catching Up on Zzz's

Catching Up on Zzz's
We spend a lot of time scouring the Internet to stay up on the hottest health and fitness trends, and each week, we’ll be sharing with you the best of what we read. (It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it!)

Since many of you are using this weekend to catch up on some shut-eye, this week is all about sleep. From snoozing the “right” way to grabbing an extra 20 minutes, we’re down for any justification for a little more rest if it makes us smarter and stronger!

In the study—by Brigham Young University—researchers followed 300 female college students, who were each given activity trackers that monitored everything they did during their day (including waking up and sleeping). After one week, the participants were assessed for body composition before. The major findings:

* Waking and going to sleep at the same time every day was most strongly linked with having lower body fat (participants whose sleep patterns varied by 90 minutes a night had higher body fat than those whose sleep varied by 60 minutes or less)

* Logging less than 6.5 hours of sleep or more than 8.5 hours of sleep was linked to having higher body fat (women who slept between 8 and 8.5 hours a night had the lowest body fat)

* "High-quality sleep" was associated with lower body fat, while "poor sleep" correlated with higher body fat

Why? Well, researchers aren't really sure (and bear in mind that this is a small study over a short period of time). But previous studies have shown that skipping sleep makes your body up its production of ghrelin (the hormone that controls food cravings) and decreases production of leptin (the hormone that helps you feel full, and may help keep you from overeating).

There are plenty of other good-health benefits associated with getting enough sleep too—so it's kind of interesting to have yet another possible reason to be consistent with the snoozing schedule!t