Arianna Huffington and one of the eds of Glamour magazine, Cindi Leive, have teamed up to bring awareness to the lack of sleep most American women are suffering from. Brava girls, this is a serious issue and one I’ve been harping on for like, ever. (Said in my best Valley Girl tone)

They even brought one of my fave sleep experts, Dr. Michael Breus, into the conversation for some recommendations. “Women are significantly more sleep-deprived than men,” confirmed Dr. Breus who is the author of Beauty Sleep: Look Younger, Lose Weight, and Feel Great Through Better Sleep. “They have so many commitments, and sleep starts to get low on the totem pole. They may know that sleep should be a priority, but then, you know, they’ve just got to get that last thing done. And that’s when it starts to get bad.”

Bad in Arianna’s case was that she passed out from exhaustion, broke her cheekbone and got 5 stitches above her eye. While most of us will not have that severe a “wake up call” sorry for the pun I couldn’t help myself, sleep deprivation shows up in subtle ways. Over time it adds up and can limit our career and personal success. Without the proper amount of sleep the brain gets foggy, we are not as quick with our decision making skills, greater stress and more.

One of the things in the “more” category which will interest many midlife women is the relationship between not enough sleep and weight gain. It’s proven that shorting yourself on zzzzs will cause you to store fat right where we don’t want it–in the belly. The reasons are many and have to do with hormones for the most part. In short, stress hormones are released or continue to circulate when we don’t get enough sleep. More cortisol means a rise in blood sugar, which means more fat storage among other things. And we make poorer food choices when we are tired in an effort to boost serotonin-the feel good hormone. And we don’t usually feel like exercise, our mood is generally low and so we might comfort ourselves with something sweet and or carbie. And so it goes.

By the way, if you think you are somehow a lazy cow if you sleep a full 8 hours, think again. The HuffPost goes on to say that many women feel they must be workaholics to be taken seriously by the old boys network. In some circles that may be true but in the long run it’s counterproductive if working all the time cuts in to your beauty sleep. I’d suggest reading post #1, and #2 which continues the discussion. In this post the women discuss their successes and challenges in sticking to their commitments to get more sleep for 30 days. Arianna and Cindi have done a smart job at pointing out the limits we are putting on our success as women by continuing this crazy lifestyle habit.

Let me know where you are on the “full night’s sleep” challenge in the comments section. Do you feel better when you sleep more or less? And if you want more tips on losing weight at midlife, why not go take a gander at my new site, Easy Midlife Weight Loss.