While you may never go to sleep one day and wake up ten pounds slimmer, you can still use your time in dreamland to your best advantage and lose as much as possible so that it will add up from one night to the next.

There are actually far more ways to lose weight while you sleep than you might realize.  The reason is that most of us don’t really pay all that much attention to the impact of resting on our dieting success.  After all, when you say you want to lose body fat, the first things that likely come into your mind are the way you eat and how much you exercise.  Neither of those things are done while you’re snuggled in your bed.

However, a growing number of studies are revealing the impact of sleep on our overall health as well as in specific categories such as our weight.  This knowledge has allowed a number of strategies to be developed for helping to lose weight while you sleep.  The following are some great tricks that can help you to develop your own strategy to burn more fat during the night.

Have an herbal tea routine – one of the best ways to make sure you have a restful sleep every night is to build a winding down bedtime schedule in which you repeat the same or similar actions at the same time every evening.  For instance, an hour before bed, shut off your electronic devices, brush your teeth, wash your face, get into your pajamas, etc.  Launch that time every night with an herbal tea with sleep promoting properties such as chamomile, lavender, peppermint and valerian.  This will let your senses of smell, taste and touch combine with the medicinal benefits of the herbs and make sure you get the best possible sleep at night, which can help you to lose more weight.

Eat carbs at lunch, not dinner – it’s vital to eat whole grains every day for B vitamins, fiber and other nutrients, but the time at which you eat them can affect your ability to sleep.  Your body can turn whole grain complex carbs into serotonin, which is then converted to melatonin in the stage 3 REM part of your sleep.  By eating your whole grains at lunchtime, your body will have had time to properly digest those foods for your best sleep.  Eating them too late in the day means you’ll have the energy benefits of carbs, not the sleep benefits, once bedtime rolls around.

Don’t eat in the evening or eat very little – the more you can avoid eating after you have dinner, the better your body will be at burning fat throughout the time you sleep.  Recent research has shown that the body naturally “fasts” overnight and by avoiding late-night snacks you can extend that natural fat burning time throughout that fasting period for the best possible results.