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If we could change our lifestyle to get some extra sleep, and decrease the amount of stress we endure, we might just find we lose weight as well. We find it hard to say no, and so end up rushing around doing far too many tasks – often skimping things instead of taking the time to do them well. Tension increases as one thing after another piles up. And that’s when we develop an overwhelming desire for food.

But now it seems there’s a scientific reason why we reach for the most fattening foods at times high stress and exhaustion. This is the thinking behind weight gain that is stress related: When the human body undergoes enduring tension, it exudes the stress-hormone cortisol.

This stimulates insulin release, as an attempt to stabilise our blood-sugar. This insulin release makes us feel hungry- particularly for carbohydrate and fat-rich foods. And so we give in to our cravings, and our energy picks up again.

Momentarily, we benefit from a lowering of stress, and we’re satisfied. Although within the merest hint of time the high has gone. This is due to the insulin taking the glucose from the blood, and storing it in fatty parts of the body such as the waist and thighs.

Thus if weight loss is your objective, first try to create a more harmonious lifestyle! It’s also thought that there could be a relationship between the amount of sleep we have each night and our weight. There was a time when the average person slept eight hours a night. This is no longer the case, with seven being optimistic for many today.

In conjunction with less sleep, we now have more obese people. Hormonal challenges are thought to relate the two things. If we’re run-down through lack of sleep, hormonal changes create hunger. As we have more waking hours, we become programmed to think we need to spend more time eating.

Patently we have a more urgent need for energy as we become drained, so yet again we desire saturated fats and carbs. Taking back that extra hour for night-time recuperation may well lead to eating fewer calories.

In short, gaining weight could have been more down to lifestyle than anything else. Why not ask others to take on some of your workload – delegation is often the answer. And so when night-time falls, you’re ready to drift off to sleep at a reasonable time, without fighting the desire for just one more snack!