Nutrition for good dreams: do’s and don’ts

By chang­ing the diet, you can not only cor­rect the fig­ure, but also pre­vent and treat cer­tain dis­eases, as well as influ­ence the qual­i­ty of sleep and the process of falling asleep. Many peo­ple know for them­selves that eat­ing cer­tain foods and drinks in the evening can lead to rest­less sleep and even insom­nia, while cer­tain cere­als, fruits or veg­eta­bles, drinks help to sleep bet­ter. Is there a spe­cial diet that helps treat and pre­vent insom­nia? What is the best din­ner for those who have trou­ble falling asleep?

Nutrition basics: what to choose for dinner?

Based on what kind of food is sup­posed to be for din­ner, it is impor­tant to know for what peri­od of time before going to bed it is worth con­sum­ing cer­tain foods. Whether it be dish­es with legumes, pas­ta with var­i­ous sauces or dish­es with meat, such food should be con­sumed at least 4–6 hours before bed­time, oth­er­wise it will not be ful­ly absorbed and lead to dis­com­fort in the intestines, which will pre­vent you from falling asleep sound­ly. If you plan to have fish or poul­try (skin­less chick­en or turkey), dish­es with pota­toes, eggs or cere­als for din­ner, you should wait about 3–4 hours before bed­time so that all the food that has entered the body is ful­ly absorbed. 1–2 hours before bed­time, you can eat food for din­ner that con­tains sour-milk dish­es and prod­ucts — kefir, yogurt, cot­tage cheese prod­ucts, as well as all kinds of fruits — oranges, apples, bananas, pears. You need to be care­ful with grapes, it can lead to bloat­ing.

Diet to improve sleep

There is a cer­tain set of prod­ucts, the use of which for din­ner can help in falling asleep and nor­mal­iz­ing the qual­i­ty of sleep. So, a sleepy diet should include:

• Turkey in boiled, stewed or oth­er­wise. This meat con­tains increased amounts of tryp­to­phan, an amino acid that has anti-stress effects on the body and helps to calm down, fall asleep peace­ful­ly and sleep well.
• Whole milk. Many peo­ple remem­ber from child­hood how their grand­moth­ers gave them a mug of warm milk before going to bed to calm down and sleep well. The pure­ly psy­cho­log­i­cal effect of a warm drink, which has a relax­ing effect, and the pres­ence of the same tryp­to­phan in milk also work. To enhance the effect, you can add a spoon­ful of hon­ey to milk, which has the abil­i­ty to extin­guish ner­vous overex­ci­ta­tion.
• The addi­tion of fish dish­es (mack­er­el, salmon or her­ring) to the diet will improve sleep, due to the con­tent of omega acids they help to fall asleep faster, and the sleep itself is made calmer and stronger.
• The diet should be enriched with cere­als in the form of cere­als. In cere­als, a large sup­ply of mag­ne­sium, which helps in relax­ing tired mus­cle fibers, relieves ner­vous excite­ment. The most use­ful among all is oat­meal, it con­tains stim­u­lants for the pro­duc­tion of mela­tonin, the hor­mone respon­si­ble for the onset of sleep.
• A baked pota­to tak­en a cou­ple of hours before bed helps in the absorp­tion of the amino acid tryp­to­phan.

If you make a diet in such a way that some of these foods or dish­es are includ­ed in the din­ner menu, you can have a pos­i­tive effect on sleep.

What causes sleep disturbance?

There is a whole group of foods and dish­es that can impair sleep if con­sumed in the evening. So, do not abuse sweets, they strain the pan­creas and pro­voke fer­men­ta­tion process­es in the intestines.

• Nutri­tion with tyra­mine, which stim­u­lates the pro­duc­tion of stress hor­mones — adren­a­line and nor­ep­i­neph­rine, which pro­voke insom­nia. Such prod­ucts include cheeses — moldy and hard vari­eties.
• Strong alco­holic drinks tak­en in excess and pro­vok­ing intox­i­ca­tion and poi­son­ing of the body, as well as pulling on feats. Alco­hol dis­rupts sleep phas­es, which dis­rupts the sup­ply of oxy­gen to the brain dur­ing sleep, which leads to headaches.
• Cof­fee, tea and caf­feinat­ed drinks — due to the stim­u­lat­ing effect of the lat­ter on the ner­vous sys­tem, they can deprive you of sleep for a long time.
• Choco­late because of the high amount of sug­ar, calo­ries and con­tent of the ton­ic com­pound — theo­bromine. The more choco­late you eat, the worse your sleep will be.
• Fat­ty meats, but­ter, lard and oth­er fat­ty foods that are dif­fi­cult to digest. The use of such dish­es leads to a mal­func­tion of the body’s bio­log­i­cal clock, due to which nutri­tion process­es are con­trolled, as well as a change in the “sleep and wake­ful­ness” cycles. In ani­mal exper­i­ments, sci­en­tists have shown that if you eat a lot of fat before bed­time, the mech­a­nism for trig­ger­ing sleep process­es is con­fused, which leads to insom­nia.

Healthy vegetables: what you need to know

Undoubt­ed­ly, veg­eta­bles and dish­es with them for din­ner will help you sleep bet­ter, but this is tak­ing into account that they are cho­sen cor­rect­ly and are not dan­ger­ous to health. Nitrate fruits can, if con­sumed in excess, lead to poi­son­ing and diges­tive dis­or­ders, and instead of a bed, a per­son will have to spend the night in the toi­let. The least haz­ardous com­pounds are found in veg­eta­bles such as onions, toma­toes and egg­plants. Cucum­bers, cab­bage, pep­pers are more dan­ger­ous, so it is impor­tant to cook veg­eta­bles prop­er­ly, espe­cial­ly if they are bought out of sea­son. It is nec­es­sary to cut off their tail and stalk, remove the skin, and for cab­bage — a lay­er of upper leaves. Veg­eta­bles stored in the cel­lars are less dan­ger­ous in terms of nitrates than those bought on the mar­ket, and when fer­ment­ed, all nitrates go into the brine.

Fruits, berries for dinner

In terms of nitrates, cer­tain types of fruits and berries are also dan­ger­ous, espe­cial­ly water­mel­ons with mel­ons, also bought out of sea­son. In addi­tion, pro­cess­ing for long-term stor­age with var­i­ous com­pounds is also rel­e­vant for fruits. When buy­ing, you need to metic­u­lous­ly inspect them so that there is not a sin­gle dam­age. If these are not local and sea­son­al fruits, you should wash them thor­ough­ly with a brush in hot water, or cut off the peel.

Fruits such as bananas will be use­ful for sleep, they have a lot of sug­ar, use­ful for nour­ish­ing cells, potas­si­um and mag­ne­sium. No less use­ful are apples and plums, which nor­mal­ize diges­tion and give a feel­ing of light­ness. You can sup­ple­ment the diet with dried fruits eat­en 2–3 hours before going to bed along with yogurt or cot­tage cheese. This dish will help to fill you up, deliv­er use­ful min­er­als and pro­tein to the body, and also con­tribute to the absorp­tion of tryp­to­phan, which is nec­es­sary for sound sleep.