CNN reports that a study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggests you could lose extra weight by increasing how much you sleep.
The study examined overweight young adults who usually slept less than six and a half hours per night to increase their sleep to around eight and a half hours per night for two weeks.
The study's participants who did extend their sleep time lowered their calorie intake by 270 calories per day on average.
"This is almost like a game-changer for weight loss or weight maintenance." Dr. Esra Tasali, author of the study, director Sleep Research Center University of Chicago, via CNN
Researchers say by consuming 270 less calories per day, one could lose 26 pounds over three years just through extra hours of sleep.
"This is a very well done study answering an important question. They clearly showed that as you increase the amount of sleep, energy intake reduced and this in turn led to modest reductions in weight." Dr. Bhanuprakash Kolla, sleep psychiatrist and neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, via CNN.
So how does sleeping more benefit weight loss?
It could be related to how sleep affects two important hormones, ghrelin and leptin.
Ghrelin causes hunger and increases with lack of sleep.
Leptin lets us know when we are full.
"Leptin has been shown to decrease with sleep restriction. Therefore when we are sleep deprived we have less of this hormone and therefore less of a brake on our appetite." Dr. Bhanuprakash Kolla, sleep psychiatrist and neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, via CNN