Nearly everyone either has struggled or will struggle with a weight problem at least once in their lives. Trying to lose weight can be one of the hardest things that you will ever have to do. There are millions of methods to losing weight, from eliminating sugar, fat, dairy or meat from your diet, to only eating certain foods at certain times. There are nearly as many exercise programs, machines, gadgets and tools being advertised as well.

But, one of the truly important things relating to weight and health is almost completely ignored or unknown. A lack of sleep or sleep disorders can make losing weight very difficult, if not impossible.

You may well question how sleep and becoming slim, and staying slim, are related. The answer is very simple: your body's metabolism changes when you sleep. Sleep is the way that your body recharges and resets itself and all of its vital functions. If you don't sleep the body can't recharge its batteries and the rhythms will be out of synch. If your metabolism is out of synch it is hard to get it back in its right rhythm.

A quick anatomy lesson to illustrate how very important it is to take care of sleep disorders and to get sleep help, before it becomes too serious: The body is a remarkable machine. The food you eat contains "body fuel", calories.

After the body gets all of the calories that it needs to burn for fuel, it will start to store the excess in the fat cells which swell and make us fat. How quickly or slowly we burn these calories is called our metabolism. This rate of energy burn is different for everybody- some people just have a naturally high metabolism, while others are usually a little sluggish.

At night, our body goes into a slower mode, finishing up the end of the day business, before it stokes the fire and shuts down for the night. But having trouble falling asleep or suffering from other sleep disorders can mean that the body does not get to complete all of the tasks that it needs to, before starting a whole new day.

Think of it like an office worker: you have a stack of paperwork at the end of the day you would like to complete and file, before new stuff comes in the morning. If you do not get caught up, things stop working correctly and there are foul ups and slowdowns to contend with.

Another issue that relates - if you suffer from sleeping disorders or lack of sleep you tend to "comfort eat" and not make the best decisions. Remember the last time you felt really tired and "down". Did you take a nap to rejuvenate?

Did you take a brisk walk to get the blood flowing again? No, you probably went to the vending machine and bought yourself a soda and a candy bar, felt good for twenty minutes and then crashed again. Our bodies are demanding that we get some sleep, but instead of listening to them we just eat something to give it something to do. Remember, once the metabolism is slowed down, it is hard to get it back up.

New research pinpoints sleep and how it affects "appetite" hormones.

When you sleep too little your body produces less of the appetite suppressing hormone "leptin", and too much of the appetite boosting hormone "ghrelin".

The result - sleeping to little or not sleeping well can actually fool your body to put on extra pounds!

A study published some years ago from California showed that women that slept 5 hours every night on average weighted 30% more than women that slept 7 hours.

Heard of "Beauty Sleep"...

The study also indicated that light sleepers were more at risk of becoming obese than good sleepers.

A very surprising finding was that sleep patterns were as important in predicting the risk of becoming overweight as eating pattern or diet!

It's not only eating healthy and exercising that is important, it is also sleeping well. The body needs the right amount of sleep or you will never have any success.

To find out how many hours per night you need to sleep is thus extremely important if you want to slim down and to stay slim!