Foods to Help Manage Insomnia

Sleep is of great impor­tance for a per­son, because dur­ing a night’s rest there is a com­plete rest and recov­ery of the body. Insom­nia that hap­pens from time to time unset­tles for a long time, and if this hap­pens reg­u­lar­ly, then it is nec­es­sary to look for ways to solve this prob­lem. There are foods that can help fight insom­nia and improve a per­son­’s qual­i­ty of life.

Tea, including chamomile

The list of such prod­ucts, and in this case drinks, is head­ed by tea — green, black, white, etc. Accord­ing to nutri­tion­ist Rick Hay, the amino acids con­tained in it nour­ish the ner­vous sys­tem, there­by accel­er­at­ing the onset of sleep. Called the “relax­ation” amino acid, L‑theanine has been shown to help reduce anx­i­ety and increase night­time sleep, which has been backed up by a vari­ety of sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies. Thus, in the jour­nal Asia Pacif­ic Jour­nal ofNu­tri­tion for 2008, data were pub­lished that the amino acid L‑theanine improves the qual­i­ty of sleep of young male chil­dren with atten­tion deficit dis­or­der.

Chamomile tea also has a calm­ing effect. The ben­e­fits of this med­i­c­i­nal plant can hard­ly be over­es­ti­mat­ed, and its spec­trum of action is so wide that it can be used in the treat­ment of a vari­ety of dis­eases, from aller­gies and eczema to colds and car­dio­vas­cu­lar ail­ments. Sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered in the inflo­res­cences a flavonoid api­genin, which has anti-anx­i­ety prop­er­ties, calm­ing the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem. Accord­ing to the same Rick Hay, inhal­ing chamomile essen­tial oil before going to bed can also have a seda­tive effect on the body.

Cinnamon — food for insomnia

Cin­na­mon is one of the few foods that can affect a per­son­’s sleep. It’s all about its abil­i­ty to low­er blood glu­cose lev­els, espe­cial­ly in patients with type 2 dia­betes. But how can it help fight insom­nia? If you sleep light­ly and wake up sev­er­al times dur­ing the night, this may be due to spikes in blood glu­cose lev­els. Awak­en­ing occurs with a strong fall, there­fore, for an eas­i­er and not too ear­ly awak­en­ing, experts rec­om­mend eat­ing a por­tion of por­ridge with cin­na­mon at night or prepar­ing some kind of drink, for exam­ple, chamomile tea with cin­na­mon.

Ginger: how does it fight sleep disorders?

This spice has been used as food for more than one hun­dred years, but recent­ly its pop­u­lar­i­ty has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly, espe­cial­ly among those who are los­ing weight. Peo­ple who use it to fight excess weight active­ly add a burn­ing root to food to improve diges­tion and metab­o­lism, but the gin­gerol present in it has oth­er pos­i­tive prop­er­ties, for exam­ple, it acts as an excel­lent blood ton­ic. One study, pub­lished in the jour­nal Com­ple­men­tary Ther­a­pies In Med­i­cine, showed that when tak­ing var­i­ous gin­ger sup­ple­ments, the time it takes to fall asleep is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced. In addi­tion, this food prod­uct is an excel­lent gen­er­al ton­ic for the ner­vous sys­tem. It is able to influ­ence the brain recep­tors respon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion of sero­tonin, and this hor­mone reduces anx­i­ety.

Passion fruit — an overseas fruit on guard of good sleep

This trop­i­cal fruit, known as the edi­ble pas­sion flower, is incred­i­bly tasty and healthy. It pro­vides the human body with car­bo­hy­drates, carotene, ascor­bic acid, iron and oth­er valu­able nutri­ents. It also con­tains such a com­pound as har­man, which has a hyp­not­ic and seda­tive effect. Fresh fruits reduce anx­i­ety, and spe­cial prepa­ra­tions — tinc­tures or tablets based on har­man — improve the qual­i­ty and depth of sleep. If it is not pos­si­ble to enjoy fresh fruits, you can look for pas­sion fruit jam or juice on sale, and the pulp of this fruit is also added to var­i­ous con­fec­tionery prod­ucts.

Lucuma is a tropical fruit that improves sleep quality.

This fruit tree is native to Chile, Peru and Ecuador. The fruit is quite inter­est­ing to look at. It has a flat­tened oval shape with an elon­gat­ed base. Its skin is brown­ish-green with a red­dish blush, and the flesh inside is bright yel­low, dry and mealy, but gen­er­ous­ly soaked in the so-called syrup-like latex, which gives the fruit a sweet, pleas­ant taste. It is this latex that is lit­er­al­ly packed with nutri­ents, but at the same time it has a low glycemic index. Unlike pas­ta, rice, and high-glycemic breads that cause you to wake up in the mid­dle of the night, lucuma nor­mal­izes blood glu­cose lev­els before bed­time, there­by improv­ing the qual­i­ty of a night’s rest.

Citrus fruits — what are they good for?

It’s no secret that cit­rus fruits are rich in vit­a­min C. And numer­ous stud­ies have shown that ascor­bic acid defi­cien­cy can con­tribute to sleep loss. Vit­a­min C is not only a pow­er­ful immune sys­tem stim­u­lant, but also nutri­tion for the adren­al glands. The activ­i­ty of the adren­al glands is reg­u­lat­ed by the ner­vous sys­tem. If the body has all the nutri­ents nec­es­sary to main­tain nor­mal func­tion­ing, the adren­al glands work nor­mal­ly, and with it the ner­vous sys­tem. Ascor­bic acid acts as a reg­u­la­tor of the pro­duc­tion of the stress hor­mone cor­ti­sol, reduc­ing anx­i­ety and stress that cause insom­nia.

Even more vit­a­min C is con­tained in foods such as rose hips, red bell pep­pers, black cur­rants and sea buck­thorn, and the Bar­ba­dos cher­ry is right­ful­ly con­sid­ered the leader. How­ev­er, they should not be abused by peo­ple suf­fer­ing from gas­tri­tis and stom­ach ulcers with high acid­i­ty.

Licorice, or licorice — what is its secret?

Licorice is cul­ti­vat­ed in many coun­tries as a med­i­c­i­nal, food and tech­ni­cal plant. It is known to herbal­ists as a ton­ic for the adren­al glands. The fast pace of life, the con­stant influ­ence of stress deplete this organ, lead­ing to the devel­op­ment of psy­cho-emo­tion­al stress, anx­i­ety and depres­sion in a per­son. The sub­stances that make up this plant have a calm­ing effect on the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem, and such an active flavonoid as gabrol improves brain func­tion dur­ing sleep, which has a ben­e­fi­cial effect on the dura­tion of the night’s rest and the depth of sleep. How­ev­er, Rick Hay warns that too much of this food can have the oppo­site effect, increas­ing the ener­gy poten­tial and vital­i­ty of the body, there­by delay­ing the onset of sleep.