You’re probably wondering how sleeping less could affect what foods you want to eat, but recent science points in the direction that the less you sleep, the more you’re body will want unhealthy foods. After studying 25 normal-weight volunteers who underwent sleep deprivation for five nights scientists were surprised to find the link between lack of sleep and junk food cravings.
The pleasure-seeking areas of the brain reacted much more strongly when shown images of unhealthy food when sleep was limited, however when participants had a “normal” night of sleep their brains reacted the same to both healthy and unhealthy food images. Ever had to pull an all-nighter and stocked up on pizza, soda, and candy?
That’s most likely because when your body undergoes extreme sleep changes it craves foods that will give it the highest caloric intake, or extremely unhealthy foods, resulting in late night, unhealthy binges.