In the first part of this article, we discussed the mechanism of sleep and how certain hormones are essential to make you sleep faster, and better. In the following article, we will continue our discussion by introducing to you the foods that can help you support and produce these hormones.
The food you consume daily will either make your health or destroy it. We made that obvious in our previous articles. But our health depends additionally on the sleep we get each night. And with that, we enter a vicious cycle of dependency between sleep and nutrition. Each influence and depends on the other.
Just like sleep, our body has a food clock which references the optimal time for our body to consume certain nutrients. In the early times, a person will search for food when he felt hungry and the possibility of him satisfying his hunger remained unknown because he would have to hunt to provide the meal. Unlike the modern days, a person usually eats robotically, on-demand, and nearly four to five times a day. This eating pattern has set our bodies to expect food at a certain hour of the day. Furthermore, this puts stress on our digestive system; Our ability to digest and absorb nutrients has lessened.
But How is that related to sleep? Let’s found out!
To make it simple, our body needs nutrients to function correctly. And since sleep can be characterized as a primary function. It too needs the required nutrients to perform correctly.
So what are the nutrients needed for better sleep?
The nutrients that are good for improving your quality of sleep are the nutrients that support your hormone melatonin, your parasympathetic system, and the Growth hormone. Such as:
– Magnesium: promotes better restorative sleep by maintaining healthy levels of GABA- Gamma-Aminobutyric acid-, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleep and relaxes the body. Magnesium can be found in different food that we consume for example (Leafy green vegetables, whole grains, legumes, seeds, fish..).
– Leafy vegetables: such as cabbage or spinach are rich in calcium that helps reduce stress in the body.
– Folate or Vitamin B9: the production of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, as well as norepinephrine all depend on folate. And the same goes for the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep. The highest level of folate is found in food such as spinach, liver, asparagus, and brussels sprouts.
– Vitamins B6: It enables the body to transform the amino acid tryptophan into serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps control levels of melatonin.
– Zinc: It works as a sleep regulator, and is essential in the metabolism of Melatonin. Zinc is one of the three minerals that have a sedative effect on the nervous system.
– Calcium: as William Sears, M.D. wrote: “Calcium helps the brain use the amino acid tryptophan to manufacture the sleep-inducing substance melatonin. This explains why dairy products, which contain both tryptophan and calcium, are one of the top sleep-inducing foods.”
– Tryptophan: is an essential amino acid that can be found in almost all protein foods and can be found in walnut. Tryptophan will be used to make vitamin b3 in the body, which plays a role in creating serotonin and melatonin. But Tryptophan does not necessarily impact melatonin. First, it needs to get transported to the brain, eating carbohydrates facilitate the transportation, as it causes the body to release insulin, which removes all amino acids — except tryptophan — from your blood.
– Vitamin C: It increases oxygen in the blood which will help your muscle tissues to relax. And also it is very good for the adrenals.
At the same time to favoring the nutrients mentioned above, we should also stay away from the following eating habits:
- Caffeine: drinking large amounts of coffee during the day can prevent your system from relaxing at night.
- Fatty food: eating foods high in fat at night can irritate your stomach and abstain you from a good night sleep.
- Eating late: eating late at night will stop you from having a quality sleep.
- Stress: having too high levels of stress while going to bed can stop the release of melatonin and kick you off from a relaxed to an irritated state.
To sum up, a balanced sleep cycle requires a healthy nutrition because it’s the source that fuels the body. And also to refrain from doing habits that harm our night routine; such as eating late at night, or eating unsuitable food and drinks that will derail our circadian rhythm and cause our sleep cycle to go haywire during the night.
Note: we are not advocating taking melatonin as a supplement or any other vitamin or mineral supplements. Instead, we encourage you to adopt a better lifestyle through a healthy diet and better daily choices to increase your natural melatonin production.
Some of the information used in this article is inspired by the following resources :
https://www.sleep.org/articles/what-is-tryptophan
https://www.dairynutrition.ca/facts-fallacies/health-concerns/sleep-and-tryptophan
https://thesleepdoctor.com/2019/02/12/5-vitamin-deficiencies-that-can-affect-your-sleep