Does nutrition affect your sleep?

It is probably obvious, but the answer to this question is clear: there is a link between nutrition and sleep. In fact, nutrition is the basis for our body’s energy levels.

If you have poor dietary habits, by eating too one-sidedly or too little, for example, your body’s energy level will also tend to be low. You then feel more regularly tired during the day.

Anyone who has gone to sleep on an empty stomach before knows that this can really keep you awake. But there are many other influences nutrition has on your sleep.

The influence of nutrition on your sleep

The most important rule is that healthy diet leads to healthy sleep. A balanced diet ensures that you get all the right nutrients for a healthy body and for good sleep quality.

Of course, what you eat or drink immediately before you sleep also greatly affects your sleep. The following things are best avoided before you go to sleep:

• Caffeine, such as in energy drinks, coffee or tea
• Spicy food
• Alcohol
• Nicotine

In addition, it is important not to eat too much more three hours before bedtime. In fact, a large meal right before bed can disrupt your sleep. A steady rhythm in what you eat and drink before bed can improve your sleep.

There are certain foods that make for better sleep because they help produce the right hormones that promote a good night’s sleep. Although the influence is limited, so certainly don’t overdo it. These include:

• Nuts and seeds
• Bananas
• Dairy
• Fish and poultry
• Sour cherries

The right balance of nutrition

Our bodies produce hormones that impact our sleep. These hormones are produced sufficiently in normal circumstances , at least if you also eat a healthy diet.

Consider, for example, the protein tryptophan, a protein found in eggs, rice, milk and chicken, among others. Tryptophan stimulates the production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin.

Or vitamin B6, found in whole grain foods, potatoes and bananas, for example, is another such substance that promotes the production of melatonin. Then again, vitamin B12, a vitamin we get from animal products such as eggs, meat, milk and fish, affects the rested feeling you experience during the day.

People with glutensitivity or celiac disease are more likely to suffer from excessive fatigue. Dutch pulmonologist Reinier De Groot points to an American study showing that 61% of patients who are glutensensitive have sleep problems.

Although at the same time, he says that too little research has been done and that science cannot yet provide consistent answers.

For now, enlarged mental agitation is thought to be the explanation. Another possibility is poorer absorption in the intestines resulting in a deficiency of neurotransmitters, which would disrupt the immune system.

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Nutrition and the circadian rhythm

Another link can be found in circadian rhythm. For example, our body temperature is controlled through this rhythm and is directly linked to sleep. In fact, to sleep, the “core body temperature” (CBT), the temperature inside our body, will drop slightly.

A heavy meal late at night can firmly throw a spanner in the works. The faster metabolism that results will just raise your body temperature, making it harder for you to find sleep. And when you do finally manage to catch sleep, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll wake up during the night due to digestive problems.

People who struggle with obesity often experience sleep problems such as snoring and sleep apnea. Although we know by now that obesity is not influenced by diet alone, this link cannot be easily denied in a society overloaded with sugars, salts and fats.

In fact, it has since been shown that if you sleep less than you should, you will get fatter. This has everything to do with the hormones leptin and ghrelin. Ghrelin increases your feeling of hunger, while the signal that you are satisfied comes from leptin. Thus, an imbalance in these two hormones causes you to get fat.

What does science say about eating and sleeping?

American researcher Eve Van Cauter has long been researching the link between sleep and eating. Among other things, she showed that people who sleep shorter hours are less able to control their appetites than people who maintain a normal sleep time.

They simply never have enough because the hormones are imbalanced. In his book “Sleep,” neurologist Matthew Walker mentions her statement “even in the greatest abundance the sleepless body proclaims famine” (p. 210, Sleep, M. Walker).

In addition, he aptly brings up that you have less energy when you are tired. And so you tend to move less because you are tired and … An ideal scenario for the so-called vicious cycle.

But that’s not all, because Dr. Van Cauter’s research also found that what you eat is linked to sleep deprivation. People with sleep deprivation are more likely to reach for quick sugars in sweets and complex carbohydrates such as bread and pasta.

Follow-up research by Matthew Walker’s team revealed that sleep deprivation causes the areas in our brain’s prefrontal cortex that we use to make sensible and rational choices to become inactive. In contrast, the brain regions with more primitive needs and drives just started responding more strongly, so the subjects ingested far more calories.

Fortunately, this situation recovered fairly quickly once the subjects returned to a normal sleep pattern.

Does nutrition affect your sleep: conclusion

Sleep is the foundation of a healthy life. But good sleep also depends on good eating habits. In addition, there are some things you should avoid before going to sleep.

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