Foods to normalize sleep: fruits, vegetables, poultry

Many peo­ple, tired after a day of work, have dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep, rest­less­ly sleep­ing or wak­ing up and then can­not fall asleep again. For a large part of the pop­u­la­tion, poor sleep is a big prob­lem. Up to 40% of adults suf­fer from insom­nia spo­rad­i­cal­ly dur­ing the year. Poor sleep qual­i­ty has been linked to heart dis­ease, decreased per­for­mance, depres­sion, and injury. There are many tips on how to nor­mal­ize the syn­the­sis of “sleepy” hor­mones and improve the qual­i­ty of sleep. A sig­nif­i­cant role is played by the prod­ucts that are con­sumed by patients at din­ner. Some fruits or veg­eta­bles, essen­tial amino acids in meals, tea or oth­er drinks can help you sleep bet­ter and sounder.

“Sleepy” hormones: how they work

Sleep mech­a­nisms involve neu­roen­docrine mech­a­nisms. In oth­er words, in order for a per­son to fall asleep peace­ful­ly, some hor­mones in his body (main­ly stress hor­mones) must decrease and the lev­el of oth­ers, espe­cial­ly mela­tonin, must increase. There are many time-test­ed recipes that affect meta­bol­ic process­es and hor­mone syn­the­sis. For exam­ple, tak­ing warm milk, some­times with hon­ey, before going to bed helps you fall asleep faster and more calm­ly. This is because the cal­ci­um in milk increas­es the lev­els of mela­tonin, a hor­mone close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with prepar­ing for sleep and falling asleep. If stim­u­lat­ed to increase the con­cen­tra­tion of mela­tonin in the blood, this can help reg­u­late sleep-wake cycles (the so-called cir­ca­di­an rhythm).

Milk and healthy sleep

Cal­ci­um also works in close asso­ci­a­tion with the amino acid tryp­to­phan from dairy prod­ucts, which is need­ed to increase the pro­duc­tion of sleep hor­mones, espe­cial­ly mela­tonin. Anoth­er ben­e­fit of cal­ci­um is that it helps to relax the mus­cles dur­ing sleep. Milk is just one source of cal­ci­um and amino acids. There are oth­er foods that can help improve sleep. Many of these prod­ucts com­ple­ment each oth­er, which means it’s worth com­bin­ing them when­ev­er pos­si­ble to com­bat insom­nia.

Nuts are a source of magnesium

Mag­ne­sium is one of the sleepy min­er­als found in almonds, sesame seeds, sun­flower seeds, and cashews. Peo­ple with low mag­ne­sium lev­els often have trou­ble sleep­ing, so eat­ing a small amount of almonds or sesame seeds will help you sleep bet­ter. In addi­tion, in a recent study, almond extract was found to have sig­nif­i­cant seda­tive and hyp­not­ic effects, mak­ing it suit­able for com­bi­na­tion ther­a­py in the treat­ment of insom­nia.

Cashew nuts and cashew but­ter are equal­ly use­ful for nor­mal­iz­ing sleep. 50 g of cashew nuts con­tain about 140 mg of mag­ne­sium (almost half of the dai­ly require­ment). It is use­ful to add nuts to por­ridge or sal­ad, dessert with fruit. This will enhance the pos­i­tive effect on the body.

Drinks for insomnia

Sooth­ing chamomile tea is a favorite drink for many peo­ple whose sleep is dis­turbed by stress or exer­tion. Chamomile tea can increase lev­els of glycine, an amino acid that has mild seda­tive prop­er­ties that can relax mus­cles and calm nerves. The effect is enhanced by adding laven­der to this tea.

Tea with pas­sion fruit flow­ers an hour before going to bed will help you relax, calm down and sleep bet­ter. Aus­tralian researchers have found that pas­sion fruit flow­ers con­tain the alka­loid har­ma­line, which has a calm­ing effect on the ner­vous sys­tem and stim­u­lates mela­tonin syn­the­sis.

healthy vegetables

To nor­mal­ize sleep, leafy greens and veg­eta­bles are use­ful. Kale, mus­tard greens, beet greens, and spinach are excel­lent sources of cal­ci­um, which works with the amino acid tryp­to­phan to syn­the­size mela­tonin. Oth­er veg­eta­bles such as let­tuce, toma­toes, green peas, and beans con­tain mag­ne­sium. It is use­ful to use them dai­ly at din­ner to tune in to a more healthy sleep. Use­ful veg­eta­bles are steamed or raw, cut into a sal­ad and sea­soned with olive oil.

Fruits that fight insomnia

In the fight against insom­nia, some fruits, such as bananas, can help. You can eat them in any form — fresh, dried, in the form of mashed pota­toes or desserts, cock­tails. These fruits are rich in mag­ne­sium and potas­si­um, both of which con­tribute to bet­ter sleep.

No less use­ful and pineap­ple. This trop­i­cal fruit is one of the few foods that con­tains amino acids that stim­u­late mela­tonin syn­the­sis. In sec­ond place in terms of activ­i­ty are fruits such as oranges and bananas, they also have the abil­i­ty to stim­u­late the syn­the­sis of mela­tonin. Sci­en­tists have shown that eat­ing pineap­ple can sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase plas­ma mela­tonin con­cen­tra­tion and thus improve sleep.

Cher­ries and cher­ry juice also help improve sleep by increas­ing mela­tonin lev­els. Stud­ies show that men and women who con­sumed cher­ry juice had high­er mela­tonin lev­els than the con­trol group.

Useful amino acids that normalize sleep

A num­ber of prod­ucts sup­ply the body with amino acids that help nor­mal­ize sleep. For exam­ple, turkey meat is high in tryp­to­phan, an amino acid that is then metab­o­lized into sero­tonin and mela­tonin, the two main chem­i­cals respon­si­ble for sleep.

Wal­nuts are an excel­lent source of the amino acid tryp­to­phan, which facil­i­tates the pro­duc­tion of mela­tonin and sero­tonin, the “hor­mone of hap­pi­ness and plea­sure.”

Chick­peas (chick­peas) are also rich in tryp­to­phan, and a serv­ing of this prod­uct will help you fall asleep faster, espe­cial­ly when paired with veg­eta­bles that con­tain mag­ne­sium.

Oat­meal is a ver­sa­tile dish that con­tains good car­bo­hy­drates to help you feel full and relax. If it is oat­meal with milk and fruits, for exam­ple, bananas, this will be an excel­lent nat­ur­al rem­e­dy for com­bat­ing insom­nia due to the com­bined action of potas­si­um, mag­ne­sium and cal­ci­um.

It is impor­tant to under­stand that food will not be able to cure severe and chron­ic insom­nia asso­ci­at­ed with var­i­ous dis­eases. They can help those peo­ple who suf­fer from episod­ic sleep dis­or­ders due to dis­rup­tion of the reg­i­men and stress. For them, healthy and tasty foods rich in “sleepy” com­po­nents will help in the fight for qual­i­ty sleep, along with a warm bath, a walk in the fresh air and oth­er activ­i­ties.