Sleepy course 😴 Day 20

Time flies! It seems like we’ve only just met but it’s already day 20 of our course. Alright-alright, away with the sentiments, let’s begin. 🤧

Nutrition 🍽

I noticed that healthy eating was very popular in your time. And I think justifiably so. It’s true, that even small changes to the diet can positively affect health, energy levels, and mood as well.

But just like with sleep, there are a lot of myths around healthy eating, and it’s important to use the scientific method and trust only the information from research published in reliable sources.

Photo by Brooke Lark

The link between sleep and nutrition 🔗

Sleep and nutrition are interdependent. It means that not only nutrition influences sleep quality, but the reverse is also true. Sleep quality influences what you eat and, most importantly, how much you eat.

Sleep ➡ Nutrition

Let me tell you a story about two cheerful, close friends. They have very similar names. One is Ghrelin and the other is Leptin. They are hormones.

Despite being friends, they fight constantly. All because they have different, opposing even, tasks.

Ghrelin constantly tries to convince you that you are hungry. Whenever you ask, it keeps telling you to eat something. Leptin, on the other hand, is responsible for the sense of satiety. You’ve only taken a bite, and it already tells you to stop.

They are both important. Leptin won’t let you burst from all the food and with Ghrelin you won’t starve to death. 🙂 It’s good when they work together.

Photo by Tyler Nix

Sleep helps them to find a common ground and do just that. 🤝 When you are sleep deprived, Ghrelin takes the reins. Leptin, by contrast, is under-produced.

As a result, people, who lack sleep, eat more frequently and in bigger quantities. On average, they consume 200-300 kcal more in a day. This is a lot! Additionally, their diet includes more simple carbohydrates from fast-food, sweets, and baked goods. One study shows that just one day of bad sleep leads to disharmony between those two buddies.

People with a predisposition towards obesity and diabetes should be especially careful. They need sleep to keep the balance between friends.

Nutrition ➡ Sleep

Research shows that even small changes to the diet can improve the quality of sleep. Here’s what you need to do.

🕰 Don’t eat later than 2-3 hours before bed

Watching people, I noticed that many are drawn to the fridge in the evening. 🙂 But alas, this is a bad habit. Research shows it’s best not to eat late in the evening. Or at least, avoid heavy foods 2-3 hours before bed and don’t eat anything after the first alarm.

🍔 Reduce the amount of simple carbohydrates

According to research, a diet high in carbohydrates reduces the amount of deep (SW) sleep.

Evolutionarily, people who ate a lot, especially a lot of high-calorie food, did better. It helped to survive and not starve. Nowadays, hunger is not a threat in industrialized countries, but the brain hasn’t adjusted yet and keeps nudging us to eat something fattening.

To be healthy, energetic, and to have good quality sleep we need to accomplish a difficult, but important task - reduce the amount of simple carbohydrates to 5% of the total daily caloric intake. Alright, at least 10%, since WHO recommends it as an absolute minimum.

Photo by Brenda Godinez

Have you started drooling? 😄 See, it’s instinctive for people! Alright, I’ll stop teasing.

🥝 Eat food that improves sleep

I didn’t believe it when I first heard it. But it’s true, some studies demonstrate that even small portions of certain foods can greatly improve the quality of sleep.

Here’s the list of products that showed their effectiveness:

Just promise me 🙏 not to eat fatty fish with milk, choose one or the other. Least you start telling everyone your buddy sleep recommended it. 😬

I would like to give a special mention to kiwifruit. It’s a tasty and affordable fruit. On top of that, it’s an excellent source of serotonin, which is a hormone important for sleep.

In one study, participants ate 2 kiwifruits one hour before bed for 4 weeks. As a result, their subjective sleep score improved by 42%, their falling asleep time improved by 35%, and sleep effectiveness increased by 5,4%.

Admit, these are great results for such a simple intervention! This doesn’t mean that you have to eat kiwifruits every day. But if you like kiwifruits, buy it more often when shopping and eat it an hour before bed. 😉

Photo by Lewis Fagg

Foods rich in tryptophan, an essential amino acid, also positively affect serotonin production. Products rich in tryptophan include red caviar, Dutch cheese, peanuts, almonds, cashews. And here’s the full list.

💧Moderate quantities of liquids before bed

I don’t like giving obvious advice, but don’t drink too much before sleep, especially if you wake up in the middle of the night afterward. 😉

If you think - “Sleepy, and what about caffeine and alcohol?”. Well, they affect sleep as well. But this is a separate topic, we’ll discuss tomorrow. 🙌

Task:

Let’s pick up new habit:

Avoid heavy food 2-3 hours before sleep, and stop eating altogether after the first alarm.
Reduce the amount of simple carbohydrates to 10% of your daily caloric intake. This means no more than one sweet or a slice of pizza a day.
Enjoy your evening ritual. ❤️
Buy more kiwifruits and preferably eat some an hour before bed.

Nutrition 🍽

The link between sleep and nutrition 🔗

Sleep ➡ Nutrition

Nutrition ➡ Sleep

Task:

The studies: