9: DIET AND WEIGHT [Rev 1-26-2019]
This is one of the general issues addressed in Step C
There are many ways that diet and weight can affect a person’s sleep. So many in fact, that insomnia can be a good entry point for an examination of a person’s overall life style, health and fitness, and self-management. On one hand, poor nutrition and health can have insomnia as a symptom.On the other hand, lack of sleep can lead to poor choices for eating and drinking.
Currently, this section is a kind of annotated list of possible food and drink related actions and their effects on sleep.
There may also be value in choosing different foods at different times of the day, to enhance energy and wakefulness during the day and promote relaxation at night.
9a. Eating and drinking to promote normal sleep
Timing: Best to have a light supper, at least two hours before bedtime. General recommendation is to
- make breakfast the largest meal, because it is most likely to be used by the body during the course of the day.
- Have a moderate lunch
- Have a relatively small supper at least four hours before bed.
- Possibly have a small snack prior to bed (Hauri and Linde, 121).
Foods:
Foods containing high amounts of tryptophan, a precursor of sleep-inducing serotonin, can help a person sleep. Common recommendations include eggs, turkey, salmon pineapple and tofu.
Complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice and pasta, and dairy products such as milk and cheese are examples of sleep-inducing foods. Bananas, nuts and beans are often recommended.
Eating salad can also help you sleep better at night as the lectucarium in lettuce has sedative properties.
9b. Food and drink that interfere with sleep
Different people have different reactions to each of the following categories of food. If food is a suspected source of insomnia, it might pay to keep a sleep record for a week, that includes suspected items along with the person’s sleep times.
When a substance is found to adversely affect a person’s sleep, a natural remedy is to replace it with something else that satisfies the need to eat or drink but doesn’t contain the disruptive substance.
General Nutrition. Insomnia can be a symptom of diets that are lacking in some important nutrients.
Food Allergies are worth checking for.
Alcohol, Caffeine, and Nicotine: See Section 8
Spicy and acidic foods can cause heartburn, which can keep a person awake. Also heavy garlic. Especially people with acid reflux. Problem increases when a person lies down, making sleep difficult. Symptoms include indigestion or heartburn, along with general discomfort (Hirshkowitz, M. and Smith 139a, 105)
Liquids of all kinds, drunk in the evening, can lead to the need to urinate during the night. If the person knows this can happen and is able easily to return to sleep, it may pose no problem. If it is an issue, it may be helpful to avoid liquids late in the day.
MSG (monosodium glutamate) can lead to digestive upset for some people It is commonly used as a flavor enhancer, particularly in some Asian foods(How Stuff Works)
Sugar and carbohydrates can be energizing. Chocolate can be doubly troublesome, as it typically contains both sugar and caffeine. Many soft drinks have both sugar and caffeine. Sugar also contributes to weight gain, which can interfere with sleep.
Diets high in refined sugar can cause indigestion and trigger insulin surges that interfere with the hormones that affect sleep. The solution: low-fat and high-fiber foods.
9c. Eating and drinking that can disrupt sleep
Having a large meal near bedtime will activate a person’s digestive system, and the increased activity can interfere with sleep. On the other hand, if the person’s digestive system partially shuts down, the food remains undigested longer, with an increased chance of turning to fat.
Protein and carbohydrates are digested more easily than fat, so if a person eats late in the day, high fat foods are more likely to disrupt sleep.
However, you should avoid refined carbohydrates and high-sugar foods as these can quickly elevate blood glucose, and excessively fatty foods such as fried chicken and potato chips, as they can cause heartburn when you are trying to go to sleep.
9d Body weight, weight gain and weight loss
INSOMNIA AFFECTS WEIGHT
There has been a lot of interest in the effect of sleep loss on weight. Often insomnia leads to weight gain, when the person tries to stay awake during the day with excessive amounts of caffeine and “energy food”, usually some form of sugar. This can lead to a vicious cycle, in which weight gain leads to insomnia, which leads to fatigue, which leads to poor diet, which leads to more weight gain.
DIETS AND INSOMNIA
People who diet by reducing or cutting out carbohydrates often have to deal with both increased hunger and insomnia. This especially seems to be true for crash diets. One solution is to plan to lose weight slowly with a diet balanced for protein, carbohydrates and fat, and to replace simple carbohydrates by complex carbohydrates. For details, a person should be referred to a nutritionist.
WEIGHT AND INSOMNIA
There is a positive correlation between obesity and insomnia, sometimes reported as a percentage. Naturalnews.com reported that in a large government survey, “One third of the people who slept less than six hours were obese, while only 22% of those who slept the normal seven or eight hours were obese.” This is suggestive but doesn’t imply causality in either direction.
However, overweight people are more likely to have sleep apnea, which interferes with sleep. This can, in turn, lead to daytime fatigue and lack of energy, increasing their hunger while also reducing their motivation to diet or exercise.
More on this can be found at the (Sleep Foundation) web site.
9e. Evaluating the nightly effects of food and drink on sleep
Variations on a sleep chart may be helpful here, with additional columns for time of supper, amount eaten, specific foods and drinks, etc, according to what you want to study.
Longer term effects – weight gain or loss, elimination of certain habits, may take another kind of record
9f Evidence
If the person gets indigestion or heartburn, he/she should avoid high garlic foods, spicy, etc.