An Overview
Hunger before bedtime is common, especially when you are used to staying up late. The craving to eat something before going to bed makes a person consume anything that is available. Eating late will disrupt your sleep pattern and you might also gain weight. It would be a bit unfair not to discuss the foods you can eat without troubling your sleep. If found a useful article at symptoms and cure.com. I have added as a bonus a short article on foods you can eat that have an added benefit of relaxing your muscles, body and mind enabling you to drift off and sleep like a baby.
Avoid these 8 foods before going to bed.
- Dairy fat:
Having calorie rich cheese or butter for dinner or even before bedtime ensures that your digestive system is going to have a hard time at the night, thus disrupting your sleep.
- Broccoli:
Broccoli and cauliflower are loaded with vitamins that are great for you, but they also carry a large amount of insoluble fiber, which takes forever to digest.
- Caffeine:
Caffeine from the coffee doesn’t let you sleep. It is used to kick our sleepiness so it should never be consumed before bedtime.
- Sugary Treats:
Sugary foods cause a rise in blood sugar, followed by a dramatic crash, which plays have with sleep patterns. If you’re desperate for a fix, settle for an apple. That should keep your sweet tooth satisfied.
- Spiced/Oily foods:
Spices cause flatulence and oils lead to indigestion, ensuring incomplete and disturbed sleep.
- Tomato Sauce:
Tomato sauce is another veggie-based favorite to avoid. Because of its high acidity, it’s often the cause of morning-after heartburn and indigestion.
- Red meat:
Dinner should always be the lightest meal of the day. If you make your digestive system work heavily overnight, it’s difficult for you to get sound sleep! Red meat being a very heavy, must be avoided to ensure a good night’s sleep.
- Beans:
Beans before bed simply fastens the process of flatulence! Avoid it to have a trouble free night.
- Sugars–
Sugars give you instant energy. That’s exactly what you don’t need before a good night’s sleep so avoid it before bedtime.
- Wine:
Alcohol of any kind is “terrible” for sleep, says Rosenberg. Why? It metabolizes quickly in your system and causes you to wake up multiple times during the night
- Aerated drinks:
These drinks have acidic content with a lot of sugar and caffeine. Drinking them can destroy you sleep for the whole night so keeping it for the day is wiser!
- Alcohol:
Alcohol makes you drowsy and in a way bogs you down. But that’s really not the kind of sleep you’d like to have.
- Orange Juice:
Orange juice is not a good pre-bedtime drink for all the reasons you’d think it’s extremely acidic, which is never a good idea before bed, regardless of if you suffer from reflux or not.
- Water:
It seems counterintuitive, but drinking too much water before bed is likely to interrupt your sleeping pattern for bed. That’s because water=urination, and you’re most likely going to want to get up and out of bed in order to do that.
Foods good for bedtime
There are many strategies you can use to promote good sleep, including making changes to your diet, as some foods have sleep-promoting properties.
- Cherries:
Cherries are one of the few natural foods to contain melatonin, the chemical that helps control our body’s internal clock, says Keri Gans, a registered dietician in New York City and author of The Small Change Diet.
- Almonds:
Almonds are a type of tree nut with many health benefits. This is attributed to their content of healthy monounsaturated fat, fiber and antioxidants. It has been claimed that almonds may also help boost sleep quality. It is a great food to eat before bed.
- Milk:
You may have fond memories of your mother or grandmother making you a glass of warm milk to help you fall asleep. This may not be just an old wives’ tale. Milk contains the amino acid tryptophan, a precursor to the brain chemical serotonin.
- Banana Smoothie:
Bananas help promote sleep because they contain the natural muscle-relaxants magnesium and potassium, says Gans. They’re also carbs which will help make you sleepy as well. Blending a banana with low-fat milk can provide high levels of vitamin D and calcium—both of which can decrease sleep complications by up to 17%. A banana smoothie is a great source of magnesium and B6, which increases the body’s serotonin levels—a “relief.
- Turkey:
Like milk, turkey contains tryptophan, but if you’re a die-hard insomniac, a meal’s worth of turkey (or a glass of milk) isn’t likely to help you. You’d have to drink a lot of milk or turkey to have a major effect,” says Rosenberg. “[But] if you need a little bit of a push in the right directions.
- Sweet potato:
Sweet potatoes are a sleeper’s dream. Not only do they provide sleep-promoting complex carbohydrates, they also contain that muscle-relaxant potassium. Other good sources of potassium include regular potatoes (baked and keep the skin on), lima beans and papaya.
- Popcorn:
One cup only contains 30 calories the carbs in it will stimulate the release of insulin, which can control your circadian clock the “body clock” that tells your body when to sleep.
To reap the benefits of sleep-enhancing foods, it may be best to consume those 2–3 hours before bed. This is because eating immediately before going to sleep may cause digestive issues such as acid reflux.