How Many Calories Do You Actually Burn While Sleeping? (2025)

Your body burns calories all the time, even while sleeping. Calories burned during sleeping hours are about 15% less than while awake. The average person burns approximately 50 to 70 calories per hour while sleeping or about 480 calories in eight hours, but the amount varies due to several factors.

While more calories are burned while awake, sleeping less is not a long-term strategy for weight loss. Getting better quality sleep and sleeping for an appropriate amount may help boost metabolism and improve overall weight management, Improving sleep and increasing muscle mass are ways to burn more calories while sleeping.

1. Increase Muscle Mass

Strength training is important for health in many ways. It may also increase basal metabolic rate (BMR), the number of calories needed daily to run the body's functions. A higher BMR helps people burn more calories even when at rest.

A six-week study looked at the effect resistance training had on women. At the end of the study, BMR increased by approximately 250 calories a day.

2. Sleep More

3. Improve Sleep Quality

Quality sleep is important to how the body burns calories. Not getting enough sleep or getting fragmented sleep can negatively affect the way the body uses food for energy.

Poor sleep is associated with insulin resistance (cells do not respond to insulin to take in blood glucose for energy, causing blood sugar levels to rise), which may be the precursor to prediabetes (having blood sugar levels that are not quite high enough to be considered type 2 diabetes).

Good quality sleep may help support both metabolism and a healthy gut microbiome (the community of microbes in the gut that aid in digestion).

A night of missed sleep may mean more calories are burned on that particular day. But a chronic lack of sleep affects many body functions, and could lead to unintended weight gain. If also trying to lose weight by lowering daily calorie intake, sleeping less could even lead to less fat loss.

4. Eat Earlier in the Day

One meta-analysis examined how the timing of meals during the day affected daytime hunger and other factors involved in weight loss. The study compared two groups. One group ate meals at about 9 a.m., 1 p.m., and 5 to 6 p.m. The other group ate meals at about 1 p.m., 5 to 6 p.m., and 9 to 10 p.m.. Sleeping/bedtime was between 12 a.m. and 8 a.m.

The group that ate their meals earlier in the day had less hunger than the group that ate their meals later in the day. Also, people who ate later in the day stored more fat cells. The authors determined that the effects late-in-the-day eating has on the body could increase obesity risk in humans.

5. Eat a Diet Compatible With Improved Sleep

One study showed that food choices can also affect sleep quality. Eating more high-quality dairy andproteinlowers the chance of having poor sleep. Including more foods considered "empty calories" (foods with calories but little nutritional value) increased the risk of poor sleep.

What Slows Down Calorie Burn During Sleep

Several factors change how many calories a person needs to run all their body systems and power activities like standing, walking, lifting, or carrying. This can include:

• Activity level (how much movement or exercise is done every day)
• Age
• Basal metabolic rate (how many calories are burned each day at rest)
• General health or any health conditions
• Height
• Muscle mass
• Pregnancy or lactation status
• Sex
• Weight

On average, sedentary women (meaning their activity level includes only that needed for day-to-day life) need between 1,600 and 2,000 calories a day, depending on age, to replace those their body burns each day. Sedentary men need between 2,000 and 2,400 calories a day, also depending on age.

Calculating Your BMR

One of the ways to estimate calories burned is called the basal metabolic rate (BMR). The body is always expending energy to run all its systems. To stay alive, a certain amount of calories is needed each day to manage everything from breathing to heart function.

The BMR is the measure of the calories needed every day to run the body's functions. That is, if doing nothing else during the day (exerting no additional physical activity), you burn calories breathing, maintaining body temperature, circulating blood, and other functions.

Formulas can be used to estimate BMR. One such equation is called the Harris-Benedict equation and includes:

• For those assigned female at birth: BMR = 665.1 + (4.34 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.68 x age in years)
• For those assigned male at birth: BMR = 66.47 + (6.24 x weight in pounds) + (12.71 x height in inches) – (6.78 x age in years)

Daily BMR calories are burned in addition to calories expended from activity. How many calories you burn performing activities depends on many factors, including your weight and the type of activity.

How to Determine How Many Calories You Burn During Your Sleep

The BMR is the number of calories burned over a 24-hour period, assuming nothing else about activity level or health. The amount of calories burned while sleeping can be calculated by first determining the number of calories expended per hour of the day. This hourly energy expenditure can be calculated by dividing the total BMR by 24.

The amount of calories burned while sleeping is less than it is while awake. The amount it is decreased during sleep is thought to be by about 15%. Multiplying the hourly BMR number by 85% (0.85) can give the approximate amount of calories burned during one hour of sleep.

For the calories burned during a night of sleep, take the hourly sleeping calorie burn number and multiply it by the amount of hours sleeping.

The total amount of calories burned can be calculated with a formula that looks like this: (BMR/24) x (0.85) x (number of hours asleep).

It's important to remember that these equations are estimates. Without a study done in a sleep lab, it's not possible to know exactly how many calories any particular person burns, either awake or asleep.

Improving Overall Sleep Quality

You can take several steps to get better sleep. Studies show that in a broad sense, quality sleep is important to health, including giving the best chance of having decreased hunger in the daytime and improving BMR. Making changes to lifestyle to increase the odds of better sleep is called "sleep hygiene."

The National Sleep Foundation offers these suggestions to help get better rest:

• Avoid alcohol and nicotine, which can cause nighttime waking.
• Avoid caffeine (soda, coffee, tea, energy drinks, chocolate) in the afternoon.
• Avoid eating for a few hours before bedtime (two or three hours).
• Block light from windows or other sources to keep the bedroom dark, which is especially important for those who do shift work and sleep during daylight hours.
• Get regular physical activity that includes low-impact exercise.
• Have a routine before bedtime that includes relaxation and not looking at screens.
• Keep the bedroom between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Make sure the mattress and pillows are in good shape and comfortable.
• Try to sleep in a quiet environment, eliminating noise from outside sources by using earplugs or white noise or brown noise (a variety of calming background sounds based on frequency).
• Try to stick to a schedule to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day.
  

Summary

People burn calories at all hours of the day, even when at rest or while sleeping. Fewer calories are needed for sleep. How many calories a person burns hourly at rest is variable and based on several factors that are not within your control, such as age, sex, height, and general health.

Getting good quality sleep is important to overall health and avoiding excess calorie intake during the day. Getting quality sleep, eating a diet that supports health, and including daily exercise may all help increase the amount of calories burned both while asleep and awake.