Sleep is extremely important to your wellness. Any number of health concerns can be linked back to a lack of sleep. No matter what you do during the day, when you finally lay your head on the pillow at night, what you really want is to fall straight asleep with no hassle.
It’s not always as simple as that, however, and no matter how much you know it would benefit your wellbeing, it can be hard to force yourself to drift off to sleep. It’s very annoying when you are lying awake and wanting to be asleep, especially when you know full well that there are all kinds of health benefits to sleep.
Many studies have shown that what you eat can have a huge effect on how well you sleep at night. If you want to get a better night’s sleep, there are certain foods that you should absolutely avoid and there are others that you should aim to include in your diet.
Cherries, for example, are thought to be very good foods as they are one of the few natural sources of melatonin. This chemical is responsible for keeping our internal body clocks regular. This is sometimes prescribed, and one small study has found that drinking tart cherry juice can improve the length and quality of sleep in adults.
Conversely, foods that are high in fat (particularly fast foods such as bacon cheeseburgers) can be very damaging to your sleep patterns. The fat in these foods stimulates your stomach to produce acid, which can then spill upwards into the oesophagus, causing painful heartburn, which makes sleep more tricky.
Funnily enough, the trick your grandmother always taught you – drinking a glass of milk before bed – is actually true. Milk contains an amino acid called tryptophan which can help you to sleep.
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