Everything you eat affects the quality of what you receive from sleep, and how well you sleep affects the benefits you can experience from a healthy diet. What that means is that a balanced and healthy diet can help regulate sleep patterns and bolster the positive benefits of your dietary choices. Any change to a routine can be difficult. It’s important not to be hard on yourself. Allow an adequate period of time for the transition period and to find balance. Eventually, your body will become used to it and you will start to feel rested and rejuvenated.
Healthy dietary changes can encourage weight loss, stabilize blood sugar levels, reduce inflammation, increase healthy brain activity, strengthen your immune system, and improve the beneficial functions of your endocrine system. All of these benefits can also help your sleep patterns. In addition, many things you eat can influence hormone production and energy systems, so finding a diet that can effectively regulate body chemistry can be crucial to optimizing your sleep habits.
The relationship between sleep and diet are so intricately related that the effect of one continuously affects the outcome of the other. A paleo focused diet can lead to effective weight loss, and weight loss has many benefits to sleep health. Another consideration is that many foods that are the most harmful to your sleep habits are also those that are the most damaging and unhealthy to your body and lead to weight gain. If you shed pounds you’re likely going to be avoiding things that interfere with sleep, and if you are losing weight you will be at a lower risk for complications that will hinder your sleep efforts as well.
What Should a Healthy Sleep Diet Include?
A healthy sleep diet means it’s just as important to focus on foods that are positive to your sleep as it is to avoid foods that can undermine your efforts towards a healthy sleep pattern. Foods such as lean meats, high fiber vegetables, fruits (in moderation), healthy fats, and foods that are heavy in important macronutrients, can be exceedingly beneficial to both your sleep health and your waistline. Check out this list of foods for better sleep.
What Should be Avoided?
Foods that should be avoided include unhealthy fats, heavily processed foods, refined sugar, high sugar foods, and things that are high in carbohydrates. More importantly, the types of carbohydrates to be avoided are usually low fiber and have a high glycemic index.
The same junk food you should be avoiding for a healthy diet is the same food that can damage your sleep efforts as well. Eating sugary foods throughout the day can spike your blood sugar levels and subsequently make them crash as your body responds by releasing more insulin. Fluctuating blood sugar levels can lead to fatigue throughout the day and can upset your sleep rhythm later at night when your body needs to be prepped and ready for a good night’s rest. Disrupting your sleep patterns can hinder the quality of sleep you can obtain. Even if you can sleep in, you may not achieve as much time in the most valuable and restorative stages of sleep. Large meals in the day, high in carbohydrates, can have the same effect on your body.
Food is energy. Heavy meals close to bedtime can disrupt your body’s efforts to wind down and relax. Your body needs time to prepare for sleep and a large meal can get in the way of this. Stick to healthier, low carb snacks that are high in fiber before bed and focus more on healthy fats than on high amounts of protein.
Balance is Key
Timing is important. Eating too much before bed can indeed hinder a healthy sleep, but it’s not a good idea to go to bed hungry. Heavy digestion can interfere with your ability to achieve deep, quality sleep. However, a rumbling stomach can as well.
Transition and Change
There are many popular diets that have become more renowned in recent years. Diets that can lead to many health benefits. These benefits can be important to sleeping effectively and soundly. A paleo diet, Mediterranean diet, or a diet focused on utilizing ketosis (keto), can help with a lot of similar things. Weight loss, energy levels, and a strengthened immune system can all enhance sleep, in terms of hours and efficiency.
Moving into a new diet, even when healthy, can shock your system a little bit. Your body needs time to adjust to how it’s processing food for energy. Carbs can be helpful in some ways and can promote the production of tryptophan. Many people moving to keto, paleo, or some other low-carb diet, experience some initial troubles with sleeping. There are a few things to keep in mind. Fiber is your friend. Your body does not digest the sugar in carbohydrates that are attached to fiber. Understanding that the net carb of a food is its total carb, minus its fiber, can be very important to making healthy carb choices. Another thing to consider is that your diet may not be getting all the macronutrients and minerals it needs anymore. Both from your diet not containing enough of them and from your diet now demanding more. Magnesium and zinc can be crucial to keep your body restful at night and energized during the day.
Whatever you do, don’t dismiss the importance of diet or the effect it has on your ability to sleep effectively. A new diet can be exciting. It can be life-changing. With patience and balance, you can optimize your sleep and your dietary health in a way that they support each other. Together with an active lifestyle and taking measures to reduce and manage stress, your new dietary exploration can strengthen your sleep pattern and ensure you get all the beneficial effects that sleep can offer.
This is a very informative post. I definitely can tell a difference in my sleep when I have too much sugar.
Good sleep and healthy diet are so important! Thanks for those practical tips!