Food and sleep
We know that sleep is incredibly important for our physical and mental health. How can we, on our from-scratch journey, cook food that helps us feel energetic during the day and ready to sleep soundly at night?
Sleep is the cure of cures.
Sleeping well at night, for long enough, is crucial. It boosts our immune system, reduces the risk of chronic illnesses developing (!), reduces stress and balances your mood, it lowers the risk of weight gain, lowers your blood pressure… You get the picture.
This is probably not the first time you’ve heard lots of benefits of sleep listed. Well, that’s all well and good to understand, but even more stressful to think about if you are struggling to get good sleep!
There are many tips out there about so-called “sleep hygiene”, ways of improving your sleep from the get-go, that you may also have heard many times. Don’t be on your phone or watch bright screens right before bed (or if you wake up in the night - this is actually linked to depression!), have a wind-down time, keep the temperature low in your bedroom, etc etc.
But maybe you’re doing all of those things, or most of those things, but still would love to improve your sleep. Now that we are on a journey of cooking our meals from scratch and making conscious choices about what we put in our bodies - for exactly the kind of health reasons listed above attributed to good sleep - should we try to combine the two a bit more? Are there some known foods or ingredients out there that can help us sleep better?
As you can imagine, since both sleep research and food research separately are such huge fields, there is a lot of info out there on how they are best combined, too. I found lots of great articles and studies when looking into this, so if you are after more in-depth research on food and sleep I really recommend having a browse yourself to find more detailed info.
But I’ve noted a few bits of information across several websites that I want to share with you:
Some foods that contain the sleep-regulating hormones melatonin and serotonin (or promote the production of those hormones in your body), can help you sleep better. So can food and drinks containing magnesium, which helps you fall asleep faster and stay asleep for longer. This is thought to be because magnesium lowers inflammation in the body (worth noting for several reasons!) This is also the case with Vitamin D. Studies also show that people who have insufficient levels of certain vitamins in their body (notably A, C, D, E and K), often have issues sleeping. So it’s worth making sure you get enough of those too, they have many benefits so you can’t really go wrong!
So let’s have a look at some of the food that contain some of the above:
Fatty fish (vitamin D)
Nuts: walnuts, almonds, pistachios ++ (magnesium and zinc)
Kiwi (potentially because of their antioxidants)
Tart cherries or tart cherry juice (possibly because of melatonin levels)
Turkey (high in protein, and it looks like eating some protein a few hours before bed can help you sleep well! Also contains an amino acid tryptophan which promotes the production of melatonin)
Chamomile tea (contains the antioxidant flavones, which lowers inflammation in the body)
Banana (contains tryptophan like turkey, and also some magnesium)
Some other tips:
Caffeine (in coffee and tea), and alcohol, are some of the worst culprits for making you struggle with sleep. Eating no later than 2-3 hours before bedtime is important so you avoid acid reflux or similar issues that can happen if you lie down too soon after food. Eating your meals at set times everyday as much as possible helps too, it makes it easier for the body to regulate its digestion, appetite and inflammation levels, and you are less likely to overeat (which doesn’t make you feel very comfortable when you try to go to bed!).
My personal adjustments to help sleep:
I am limiting myself to one cup of coffee in the morning now and don’t have any coffee later in the afternoon - I have noticed that has helped me a lot with sleep. I have also tried to increase my magnesium intake, as I believe it helps my endometriosis pain (which fits with the suggestion that it lowers inflammation!). I also find that after I practically stopped drinking alcohol (this was no surprise to me), my sleep has been much less interrupted.
I am just mentioning my own personal experiences here as I know a lot of research and facts can be hard to take in, and sometimes it can be helpful to just check back in with ourselves and what we find to be true for our body and how it reacts. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are!
What food and drink do you find the best - and worst - for your sleep? Post on Instagram and tag me @TheFromScratchBody and use the hashtag #TheFromScratchBody so I don’t miss it!
