If you want to optimize your health, sleep is a must. Sleep will do a lot, from increasing your resting metabolic rate, giving you more control over your cravings, to ensuring you have the energy to tackle the day. It can also help you prevent health-related conditions such as depression, type 2 diabetes, and even heart disease.
However, many people do not get the sleep they need each and every night.
Fortunately, there are ways around this. There are certain foods you can eat to help improve your health and ensure that you fall asleep on time and sleep soundly when you do.
Here are three nutrition tips to keep in mind…
1. Don’t avoid carbs. Many people avoid carbs entirely before bed because they believe that eating carbs will make them gain body fat. If you plan them as part of your day, this is not the case. Just be sure to choose carbohydrates that are complex in nature and contain as little sugar as possible. Complex carbohydrates will help keep blood sugar levels stable.
A small bowl of oatmeal, for example, is the perfect bedtime meal. These carbohydrates will help trigger a release of serotonin in your body, which can help you feel calm and sleepy.
2. Be careful with fats. What you need to be careful about is your dietary fat intake. Eating too much dietary fat before bed is problematic, as it can lengthen the digestion process and keep you awake while blood rushes to your stomach.
You don’t want a meal sitting in your stomach for the first few hours of sleep, or this can affect the quality of sleep you get. Your fat intake at this meal should stay between 5 and 7 grams or less.
3. Eat foods rich in tryptophan. Finally, one amino acid that you will want to include as part of your bedtime meal, if you can, is tryptophan. This amino acid will make you feel sleepy and can also induce feelings of calm.
Foods that are excellent sources of this amino acid include…
- walnuts,
- seeds,
- Turkish,
- oatmeal,
- beans,
- slow,
as well as eggs. This is one reason you often feel so sleepy after holiday turkey dinners: Tryptophan is flooding your system.
There are three quick nutrition tips to keep in mind before bed. Eat well before bed and you’ll be sleeping soundly in no time.