Sleep And Food

There is good scientific evidence that what you eat can certainly affect your sleep. For many years it has been known that diets deficient in essential nutrients make people drowsy and fatigued, and also prevent them from having adequate sleep. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia, both chronic nutritional deficiency disorders, lead to poor sleep. Your diet must have all the essential nutrients to allow you to sleep well.   

When we sleep seven and a half or eight hours, we usually fast as well. Yet this prolonged period without food or drink does not usually leave us overcome by hunger the next morning. Clearly, our nutritional needs are different when we are asleep and when we are awake. For this reason, having a heavy meal before you go to sleep disturbs the normal pattern of relative rest your digestive system takes during sleep. Consuming a large amount of food before bedtime results in enzymes being secreted to aid digestion during the night, and this process will interfere with your sleep. 

Similarly, any food that produces increased acid secretion in the stomach may cause symptoms such as heartburn or gas during sleep. Spices, onions, peppers, and other acid-producing foods have been shown to hamper sleep, while warm milk, Ovaltine (made from milk and cereal), Horlicks (a malt drink), or any food that is high in tryptophan (such as milk), before retiring, help people to sleep better. A meal high in carbohydrates (such as pasta) is much more soporific than one high in protein. 

Many people find it difficult to stay awake immediately after lunch, and especially if lunch has been heavy, if they haven't slept well the night before, if the post-lunch activities are dull or boring, or if they consumed alcohol with their noon meal. Contrary to popular belief, the reason for this tiredness after lunch is not the lunch itself; volunteers who were tested for sleepiness were drowsier in this afternoon period than at any other time of the day except in the middle of the night, even when they had had no regular meals at all, just snacks every two hours during the day. The tendency to snooze after lunch occurs primarily because midday is the trough of your sleep-wake cycle, but the added effect of a large meal combines with the trough to produce an overwhelming effect. Having a lighter lunch, avoiding alcohol, being well rested the night before, and including some stimulation such as movement in your early-afternoon routine will help alleviate the post-lunch dip.