It’s no secret that both nutrition and sleep play a fundamental role in our health, but the complex and important relationships between them are frequently overlooked. Diet and nutrition can influence the quality of your sleep, and certain foods and drinks can make it easier or harder to get the sleep that you need. At the same time, getting enough sleep is associated with maintaining a healthier body weight and can be beneficial for people who are trying to lose weight. Recognizing the connections between sleep and nutrition creates opportunities to optimize both in order to eat smarter, sleep better, and live a healthier life.
We all know sleep is vital to health, but recent research has provided a better understanding of how sleepless nights can directly impact food choices and nutrition. But before digging a little deeper, let us define Nutrition and sleep. The World Health Organization defines Nutrition as a critical part of health and development. Better nutrition is related to improved infant, child and maternal health, stronger immune systems, safer pregnancy and childbirth, lower risk of non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease), and longevity. According to Ana Krieger, MD, MPH, eating an overall healthy and nutrient-rich diet affects our brain health and activity — and in turn, our sleep.
Sleep is essential for the body to function properly. It allows the brain and body to rest and recover, and an increasing amount of evidence points to its role in maintaining proper nutrition and a healthy body weight. Most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep. Getting enough hours of quality sleep can improve dietary decision-making and contribute to a well-rounded weight loss plan. Studies have shown that people who are trying to lose weight have better results when they get good sleep.
Dr. Krieger further elaborated that eating healthy and allowing the body to absorb proper nutrients provides the brain with the chemical environment that it needs to produce the neurotransmitters required to maintain adequate sleep. The nutrients we get from foods serve as the building blocks for other minerals and proteins that are needed to create the amino acids that are involved in sleep, she says. Although the research behind how various nutrients in our diet affect our sleep is young and the supporting evidence is far thus intriguing.
There’s also a connection between sleep and how we metabolize food. Diet and food choices help regulate our circadian rhythm, the roughly 24-hour cycle that our body follows each day, according to Kristin Eckel-Mahan, PhD. Our circadian rhythms keep our body clock moving on time, which in turn keeps all of our bodily functions running on schedule — such as falling asleep at night, waking up in the morning, feeling hungry when we need energy and metabolizing the food we eat.
As a general rule, a balanced diet made up largely of a variety of vegetables and fruits is able to provide the recommended daily intake of vitamins and nutrients, contributing to better sleep while promoting a healthy weight. To improve your sleep quality, make sure to eat a healthful breakfast within about an hour of waking, re-hydrate properly, go easy on your coffee intake, and refrain from using your phone and other gadgets and limit your fluid intake before sleeping.
PNC-ZDS Marie Claire A. Gaas
References:
1. Nutrition and Sleep
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20well%20established,deep%20sleep9%20you%20get. (Updated November 6, 2020)
- What you eat affects your sleep
nbcnews.com/better/health/how-what-you-eat-affects-how-you-sleep-ncna805256
- How Much Sleep Do I Need?
https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-requirements#:~:text=Most%20adults%20need%207%20to,hours%20of%20sleep%20than%20usual.
- Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20921542/ (Arlet V Nedeltcheva 1, Jennifer M Kilkus, Jacqueline Imperial, Dale A Schoeller, Plamen D Penev)