15 May Eat Well to Sleep Well
There are many things that we do when we are awake that contribute to our sleeping patterns. Active practices such as exercise and meditation have been discussed in other articles on our website and they have been found to affect sleep quality and duration. But how about what we eat and drink? A quite obvious example of things we consume affecting our sleep is caffeine. When we need to stay awake for a project or last-minute assignment, a lot of us tend to grab a can of Red Bull or make a cup or three of coffee. But how does our regular diet affect our sleep?
A review by St-Onge, Mikic & Pietrolungo (2016), analysed various studies investigating the relationship between certain diets and sleep quality. Rather than direct relationships, these relationships were largely associative, meaning that while it may suggest that diets have an effect on sleep quality, more research is needed for this conclusion to be made. For example, one study observed that a population of female Japanese workers that consumed more confectionary and noodles had lower sleep quality. Conversely, they found that those who consumed more fish and vegetables had a higher sleep quality.
On top of what we eat, when we eat our meals also affects our sleep quality. A study by Crispim et al. (2011) found that food intake close (30-60 minutes) to bedtime negatively correlated with sleep quality. This meant that participants who ate during that time had a worse sleep quality compared to those that did not. A study by Xian et al. (2023) also suggested that regularly eating breakfast is associated with improved sleep quality.
These studies suggest that we need to carefully choose what we regularly eat, as aside from the general health impacts of food, our sleep can also be affected. Furthermore, we need to be mindful of the times we eat, making sure to maintain regular eating patterns during the day to help us sleep at night.
References
Crispim, C. A., Zimberg, I. Z., dos Reis, B. G., Diniz, R. M., Tufik, S., & de Mello, M. T. (2011). Relationship between food intake and sleep pattern in healthy individuals. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 07(06), 659–664. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.1476
Katagiri, R., Asakura, K., Kobayashi, S., Suga, H., & Sasaki, S. (2014). Low intake of vegetables, high intake of confectionary, and unhealthy eating habits are associated with poor sleep quality among middle‐aged female Japanese workers. Journal of Occupational Health, 56(5), 359–368. https://doi.org/10.1539/joh.14-0051-oa
St-Onge, M.-P., Mikic, A., & Pietrolungo, C. E. (2016). Effects of diet on sleep quality. Advances in Nutrition, 7(5), 938–949. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.116.012336
Xian, X., Wang, C., Yu, R., & Ye, M. (2023). Breakfast frequency and sleep quality in college students: The multiple mediating effects of sleep chronotypes and depressive symptoms. Nutrients, 15(12), 2678. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15122678