It is really the small things that we do that compound into big disorders. Sleep is the most underrated repair mechanism of our body which we tend to take for granted.

As we approach bedtime (9-10pm), our body is naturally trained to shut down and go into repair mode. The organs slow down, digestion slows down, your eyes feel droopy, etc. Now what happens with an extended bedtime is you’re forcing your body to stay awake when it actually wants to go into snooze mode before tomorrow’s hustle. Your body starts believing that it still needs to work and eventually makes you feel like you need more food. So you’ll feel like eating a snack (which your body doesn’t really need). This snack is usually full of empty calories and nothing nutrient dense because, we have ice cream/popcorn/namkeen cravings right?

Anyway, when you do go to sleep which is late, your sleep is disturbed and eventually you wake up feeling tired. This is because you’re forcing a sleepy digestive system to work on the junk you ate, and you also slept less so your body hasn’t repaired. Whatever you did eat late at night didn’t get used up anywhere because you obviously didn’t burn it with movement.

Repeated occurrence of this cycle will hinder your body’s capability to understand hunger in the first place because you’re eating food when your body doesn’t really need it, you also tend to eat empty calories which get stored as fat.

Also, your body isn’t healing well from the day’s work due to lack of rest. This cycle eventually leads to insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity and what not. But let’s be realistic, we do pull late nights because of work/study. How do we tackle hunger pangs?

Simple solution:

• Have an early dinner by 7:30-8 pm
• Have a post dinner snack around 9 30 pm which can be
• A bowl of sabji/steamed vegetables or a bowl of dal/sambar

This will keep you full for a couple hours and are not empty calories. Can we count this as a win-win?

But seriously, don’t make it a habit and don’t push it beyond midnight. Shut it and go to sleep.