How to eat for better sleep

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN

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To prep for a good night’s sleep, start at breakfast.

What you eat throughout the day could affect your quality of sleep at night. Adding foods with the right nutrients could help you get to sleep, stay asleep and wake up more refreshed, according to Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge, the director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

In “Eat Better, Sleep Better: 75 Recipes and a 28-Day Meal Plan That Unlock the Food-Sleep Connection,” St-Onge presents research linking certain foods with the production of melatonin — and better rest.

Melatonin is a hormone that regulates sleep and wake cycles. But the production of melatonin relies on tryptophan, an amino acid that people need to get from nutrients because the body can’t produce them, said St-Onge, who is also a professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University.

While some ingredients in particular can help provide tryptophan or encourage melatonin production, just eating a handful of nuts right before bed isn’t going to do the trick, said Dr. Erica Jansen, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

The book is a good representation of the current science around sleep and food, which shows that the best approach to eating for better sleep focuses on what you eat throughout the day rather than prioritizing one food for a quick fix, she said.

“That’s really what I see in my research as well –– that it’s a whole approach to eating,” Jansen said.

Foods that promote sleep

The research suggests that overall, having a balanced, whole-food diet is helpful, St-Onge said.

She recommends focusing on a diet heavy in plants (like fruits and vegetables) but also high in whole grains, fiber and protein sources that are lower in saturated fats.

Such foods include legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, tofu, nuts, seeds and beans, which are all good sources of tryptophan, according to the book.

When choosing carbohydrates, look for fiber-rich options, and avoid highly processed carbs such as cakes, cookies and crackers, St-Onge wrote.

Need more guidance? Eating a Mediterranean-style diet, which is higher in fats from fish and olive oil, was associated with a lower risk of insomnia and more time spent sleeping, according to a 2018 study by St-Onge and her coauthors.

Other micronutrients also help support your body’s response to tryptophan and melatonin.

Add zinc to your diet with ingredients like almonds, oysters and wheat bran; magnesium with chia seeds, cashews and yogurt; vitamin B with bananas, chickpeas and tuna; and folate with broccoli, lentils and spinach, according to St-Onge’s book.

Melatonin and other supplements aren’t as helpful

It isn’t a matter of cutting everything that isn’t sleep-promoting out of your diet but rather working in more of sleep-promoting foods as you can, Jansen said.

“If you want to eat something that’s really not sleep-promoting, it’s not a big problem,” she said. “It’s not a very prescriptive diet.”

Still, it might not be a good idea to eat something sugary, spicy or caffeinated before bed, Jansen said. Focus on adding nutrients that promote sleep instead of restricting foods that don’t.

Can’t you just get melatonin or the nutrients that promote it from supplements? Not ideally, St-Onge said.

Supplements don’t always provide the right dosage or optimal form of a nutrient, she said. In many cases, nutrients work best paired together, whereas supplements often deliver the nutrient by itself.

“Getting nutrients from a balanced diet is generally healthier and safer than supplements,” St-Onge wrote. “Plus, absorbing nutrients from foods is more efficient than extracting them from supplements.”

Eat more of the good stuff

Though people who are already eating a nutrient-dense diet can do more to optimize their sleep, the ones who will likely benefit most are people who have poor diets, Jansen said.

If you want to add more whole foods with sleep-promoting nutrients into your day, dietitian Alexandra Babcock recommends starting with one meal, particularly one that needs more inspiration.

For some people, that’s breakfast. You can add one serving of fruit, vegetables or beans to your morning meal, Babcock said. She loves eating savory oatmeal with a poached egg and black beans.

If you want to add more whole foods to your lunch, a salad with chickpeas is a good option, according to Babcock, who owns Nutrition Innovations in Austin, Texas.

Chickpeas don’t have to be boring, Babcock added. “They can have flavor. They can be toasted and roasted in spices.”

Small changes geared toward a healthier lifestyle often build on one another: Adjusting one meal could lead to more changes, which could motivate you to get more active — and, of course, exercise is linked to better sleep.

Lifestyle changes can help you get better sleep, but that might not be enough for people who have insomnia, Jansen said.

“It does have to be kind of like a holistic approach,” she said. “For someone who has really significant sleep disorder, their sleep disorder really should be addressed by a physician at the same time that they’re improving their diets.”

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