Even when you're deeply engaged in z-talking or playing hero in your dreams, your body is steadily cooking up calories, making those sleeping hours quite productive after all. The process, slicker than a politician's promises, hits about 85% efficiency compared to the waking hours. Imagine this, if an average person is gifted about 50 to 70 calories loss each hour they enjoy the lullaby land, it sums up to a sweet 480 calories in a solid eight-hour sleep, give and take some due to individual specifics. Now that's practically challenging the chore of staying awake.

Women who've mastered the art of being sedentary (or, not busting their gut in a gym) require between 1,600 and 2,000 daily calories to refuel, while their male counterparts who strut around doing the bare minimum need between 2,000 and 2,400 daily calories, depending on factors like age and selfie-game level.

While your sleep-worker mantra may shy away from exact calorie count, the estimate can be quite carpet close. Upping the ante on sleep quality and trying not to lose the flex game can actually nudge the scale on snooze-time calorie burning.

Factors that play business-influencer in your calorie count range from breathing to circulatory activities like lifting your favourite pint or grooving subtly to the weekend's anthem. Health acknowledges terms like "female," "male," "woman," and "man" impact the daily calorie requirement to carry day-to-day functions. However, don't get yourself twisted in these jargons, focus on the basal metabolic rate (BMR), instead.

BMR is your secret calorie cooking agent, which fries up those calories even when you're busy doing nothing. We're talking breathing, maintaining body temperature, flipping scrolling fingers, everything. Your Harris-Benedict equation can help estimate it, handing out numbers on a silver platter.

Remember those bedtime stories about multiplying with 85% to find the calories burned during a sleeping hour? Well, welcome to reality. You can determine the number of zzz-time calories by multiplying the hourly BMR by 85% and the number of snoring hours. Though an estimate, it's a pretty tight one, unless you're keen on sleep lab studies.

Strategies to increase your dream-time calorie burns - packing more muscle bricks: A six-week study showed that lifting heavy could 'lift' BMR by a juicy 250 calories a day. More sleep, less hunger pang: people who embraced a frenzy of z's lost more weight via improved sleep quality and duration. Ditching midnight snacking: Eating early in the day led to less stored fat cells and managed hunger better.

A proper sleep diet: Good sleep, like a good Tequila, needs assistance (food pairing for us) to escalate its effects. Quality dairy and low empty calories can lull you to longer, enhanced sleep. Short sleep = fat sleep: getting skimpy on sleep can tick off your body's insulin balance and cause unintended weight gain, affecting digestion and metabolism.

In a nutshell, trodding down the path of health and fitness is more than munching on kale salads and popping tabatas now and then. It's also about welcoming good quality sleep to maintain the balance, increasing hours of rest, munching an early dinner, and including daily sweat-sessions. After all, even the subtle art of resting can cook-up calories, albeit at a slower pace.