There is more to medical weight loss in Beverly Hills than eating sensibly and exercising adequately. There is something else that doesn’t require keeping track of everything you eat or pushing yourself to keep going on your treadmill when you’ve had enough. There’s a component of weight loss that’s as easy as catching enough shut-eye.

Getting a good night’s sleep helps your body regulate how much food it needs, according to researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden. The scientists found that young men with normal weights were hungrier after a night without sleep. The researchers then looked into which areas of the brain that generate appetite are affected by a lack of sleep.

Their experiment involved using magnetic imaging to look at the brain activity of 12 men with healthy weights. They first gave the men a night of normal sleep and then looked at their brain activity while showing them images of food. Next, they made the men go a night without sleep and again looked at their brain activity while showing them pictures of food. When they compared the two sets of brain images, they found that losing a night of sleep activated an area of the brain that prompts hunger. When they had no sleep they reacted much more strongly to the pictures of food. The researchers concluded that getting about eight hours of sleep a night helps keep appetite to a normal level, which in turn helps maintain healthy body weight.

You know that it’s more difficult to make wise food choices when you are really hungry. Since being sleepy makes your appetite even bigger, make sure you get enough rest each night. Doing so will tame your appetite so it will be easier to follow your diet plan.