Stress, Sleep Deprivation & Social Jet Lag

Stress, sleep deprivation and social jet lag are all messing with your health.

Stress raises cortisol. This leads to weight gain and chronic disease.

Sleep deprivation raises your stress level. You wind up feeling lousy. Getting too little sleep is no longer a reason to brag.

Social jet lag happens when you stay up late and get up early. You try to manage the sleep deficit on the weekends by sleeping in. When bedtime rolls around again, you can't get to sleep and wind up staying up late again. The catch-up sleep didn't really work.

Sleep is necessary to combat these things that are throwing you off. Sleep allows your body to create leptin and also helps manage cortisol. Leptin is the hormone that allows you to feel satiated so you don't overeat. High cortisol levels lead to comfort food cravings, meaning you can't get enough of the fats, salts and sugars your mom used to make. You need sleep so your cortisol levels are high in the morning and decrease over the course of the day, only having little peaks after meals.

Improve your health by getting more sleep. Put down your electronics at night. Go to bed by 10 or 11 p.m. Don't consume caffeine or alcohol at night. Exercise in the morning to get back into the groove.

Listen in as Dr. Theodore Friedman shares how to remedy the damage caused by stress, sleep deprivation and social jet lag.