Sleep repairs, rejuvenates, and strengthens your body. You need to sleep decently if you want to feel good.
People try drugs, supplements, and healthy habits like exercise and meditation to improve their sleep. But could your diet also play a role in how well you sleep? Yes!
Certain foods (and eating habits) make it harder for you to get a good night’s rest. Below is a list of suggestions. Afterwards, we’ll take a look at a few foods that can help you fall asleep faster.
Foods and Habits that Destroy Sleep
Stay away from:
1. Overeating.
Eating more calories than you need has been correlated with poor sleep quality in studies 1. Poor sleep quality is correlated with obesity as well 1.
Don’t be one of the millions of people who eat too much and don’t exercise. If you are, your sleep quality will suffer.
2.Too Many Processed Carbohydrates
Stick to fruits, veggies, and whole grains for carbohydrate sources because eating candies and high-carb starches like noodles and white breads can reduce sleep quality 1.
3. Spicy Foods at Night
If you have a sensitive stomach, you might want to skip very spicy foods at night. The gastrointestinal discomfort could keep you up or interrupt your sleep.
4. Alcohol
Even though people use alcohol to lull themselves to sleep, it can disrupt sleep quality. Alcohol can have stimulating effects at low to moderate doses and drinking at “happy hour,” even six hours before bed, tends to disrupt sleep 2.
Drinking heavily can have a sedating effect, but let’s be honest. Alcohol is terrible for your health, and it’s not worth it. Alcohol can suppress the brain-renewing REM sleep cycle (the cycle in which you dream) 2.
5. Too Much Coffee
In 2017, a review of medical literature concluded that coffee consumption was correlated, in a variety of ways, with poor sleep quality 3. Arousal and sleep interruptions increase, and the time spent in your sleep cycles decreases 3. That’s not good!
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6. Too Much Sugary Drinks
Sugary caffeinated drinks are associated with getting less sleep 4,5. Sugary drinks are closely tied to obesity as well, which hurts sleep quality 4.
Your body was meant to be fed only high-fiber foods like veggies and fruits, not the fiberless high-sugar drinks that immediately spike your blood sugar. Fiber helps slow down sugar release into your blood. Imbalances in blood sugar, like having high or low blood sugar, can interrupt your sleep.
Foods that Actually Help With Sleep
Not all food is bad for your sleep. Here are some snacks that help lull you to sleep, and we’ll tell you why they help fight sleeplessness.
1. Tart Cherry
Cherries (especially tart cherries) contain melatonin, and researchers have put cherries to the test to see if they improve sleep quality. Consistently, cherry consumption raised the levels of melatonin in people’s urine, a sign that the melatonin levels in your body can be raised by cherries †1. Also, cherries improved sleep quality, and reduced insomnia†.
2. Kiwi Fruit
Kiwi also contains melatonin, and when people consumed two kiwi fruits an hour before bed for four weeks, sleep quality “significantly” improved and participants had fewer interruptions in their sleep †1.
Researchers think the serotonin and folate content of kiwis help increase calming neurotransmitters that induce sleep 1. That’s right, kiwis actually contain the feel good and calming neurotransmitter serotonin 1. They are one of the few fruits that can boast high serotonin content.
3. Pumpkin Seeds
Get some delicious and creamy pumpkin seed butter or a bag of sprouted pumpkin seeds, and eat a bit at night before bed. Pumpkin seeds are one of the densest sources of magnesium, and they have a high level of tryptophan, the precursor to the calming neurotransmitter serotonin and sleep-inducing melatonin.
4. Milk
It’s been traditionally held that milk improves sleep. If you’re a fan of milk, you might want to have a glass before bed because some research shows that it makes it easier to fall asleep 6.
Do you struggle with achieving deep, restful sleep?
Having a good night’s rest is the key to living a life full of energy and passion. But the modern lifestyle has become a huge detriment to sleep quality.
Without a full night’s rest, there’s a good chance you are missing out from living your best life.
Fortunately, there are key lifestyle choices you can implement right away so you don’t have to wake tired and groggy.
Discover these groundbreaking sleep hacks to drastically improve your sleep quality and wake up actually feeling refreshed and ready to conquer the day.
Click here to download the FREE report and find out how you can improve your sleep quality.
