Insomnia is a significant problem many people suffer from as many causes are to blame, such as excess stress, watching TV and spending time on screens late at night, exercising too late at night, doing anything stimulating, and hormones can also be the culprit. Women entering menopause struggle with insomnia for that reason, and men go through hormonal changes too.
However, what you eat has a significant impact on how well you sleep. If you are struggling with insomnia and you are taking hormonal supplements, exercising earlier in the day, meditating, and keeping away from the screens, then you will want to look at what you eat. There are certain foods you will want to avoid that could be keeping you awake at night.
Let’s go over them now.
Anything Caffeinated
There is evidence that fatty foods have a negative impact on your sleep. In 2016, a study agreed that taking large amounts of saturated fats made sleep feel superficial and insufficient.That is a no-brainer. If you are drinking coffee after 2 pm, or energy drinks, which also include green tea, then you will want to stop doing that and only consume caffeinated beverages before 2 pm on any day as that should be the cut-off. And you will want to avoid caffeine from thereon because that will affect your sleep.
This happens because our digestive systems are not very active when we are asleep. So, fatty meals can cause a bit of a problem when you’re ready to turn in for the night because it’s difficult to digest.
Avoid greasy and heavy foods like fried chicken, french fries, mozzarella sticks, and potato chips.
Alcohol
If you are craving an alcoholic drink, you will want to drink it at least five hours before you go to bed because alcohol does cause sleep disruptions, even though it may be causing you to want to sleep. Perhaps you will fall asleep after a drink, but you will be up an hour or two later and struggle to fall back asleep. Therefore, you do not want to have that drink of wine past dinner.
Chocolate
Whether you have dark chocolate or chocolate cake, you will want to think twice before having that at night. You already know there is caffeine in chocolate, which means you will be kept up from that, but a lot of fat and sugar will also disrupt your sleep. Since the fat causes your digestion to slow and your blood sugar is volatile after eating it, you definitely want to scratch it off as a before-bed meal.
Ice Cream
Ice cream, and anything sugary for that matter, is also a bad choice because of the sugar content, and the fat will disrupt your sleeping pattern as your blood sugar will elevate after eating ice cream. The best time to eat ice cream is earlier in the day so that you can exercise or burn it off in other ways. It is one of the worst before-bed snacks.
Raw Vegetables
Yes, raw vegetables are healthy, and you may not think it matters to eat a celery stick or carrots before bed because of the low-caloric value. However, there is a lot of fiber in vegetables, and you will end up being kept up at night because digesting the fiber will disrupt your sleep.
Aged Cheese
You may have heard that cheese can help bring on melatonin production as it is a recommended before-bed snack, but that is the cheese that is not fermented. Fermented or aged cheese is a different story. The reason for that is that aged cheese has plenty of tyramine as it is an amino acid that keeps you awake when you are tired, so you will be tossing and turning at night because you cannot sleep even though you are tired.
Anything Spicy
Spicy foods can have a negative impact on your sleep because heartburn is a possibility. However, the bigger reason is that spicy foods will change your temperature, which will cause you not to get comfortable when you need to sleep. If you are too hot, you will not be able to sleep, and that is how you will feel after eating anything spicy.
Tomatoes
You may find that tomatoes keep you up because of heartburn as well. However, like fermented cheese, tomatoes are high in tyramine which will keep you awake even though you will be tired. Therefore, if you plan to eat a tomato, eat it early in the day, so it wears off by the time you go to bed.
The rule of thumb is to not eat anything too fatty in large portions, with too much fiber, sugary, and spicy, and keep away from caffeine and alcohol at night. If you can do that, you will find that you will have a much better time sleeping.
