Sleep Aids, Sleeping Disorders, Treatment, Pills

Food and sleep are intimately related; how you snooze depends on how you eat, and vice versa.  One the one hand, if you suffer from insomnia, you can ease your way into sleep by timing your meals carefully and monitoring what types of foods you eat before bedtime.At the same time, one of the best ways to lose weight may be to spend more time asleep.

Scientists like David Rapoport, MD, associate professor and director of the Sleep Medicine Program at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City, have been exploring the relationship between eating and sleeping,

 
Many insomniacs are familiar with the experience of sleepless nights followed by hungry days; you’ve been awake all night, and during the day you eat and eat without ever feeling satisfied.  Likewise, one surefire way to keep oneself awake late into the night is to consume heavy, greasy midnight snacks, which will take hours to digest.  

Because of the close relationship between food and sleep, dieters may find that they can lose more weight if they go to bed earlier or wake up later; their craving for foods full of sugar and calories is likely to decrease when they get at least eight hours of sleep a night.  According to sleep doctor Dr. Michael Breus of Scottsdale, AZ, author of The Insomnia Blog,  "One thing I have seen is that once a person is not as tired, they don't need to rely on sweet foods and high carbohydrate snacks to keep them awake -- and that automatically translates into eating fewer calories." 
 
If you are trying to lose weight by sleeping more, you may want to develop the following habits associated with good sleep hygiene:

• Develop a regular sleeping schedule, in which you wake up every morning at the same time, even on weekends and holidays. 
• Give up midday naps.
• Exercise regularly in the morning, when you need to raise your energy level, but not at night when you are trying to relax and get ready to sleep.  Avoid emotionally draining conversations and stress-inducing work activities after sunset, and keep them away from the bedroom.
• Experiment with yoga, meditation, deep breathing or relaxation techniques right before bedtime. 
• Keep sleeping quarters cool, dry, comfortable and soothing.  Earplugs and eye patches may be useful for this. 
• If you are having trouble sleeping, go into another room to read, listen to soothing music or indulge in some other quiet activity, but avoid tossing and turning in the bed lest you begin to associate your bedroom with insomnia rather than sleep. 
• Do not consume any caffeine or other stimulant drugs after 8 PM; thus, avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, soft drinks and diet pills.   Stay away from alcohol and cigarettes.
• If you are pregnant and suffering from insomnia, it may help you to drink warm milk or take warm baths before going to sleep. 
• If you believe that your eating habits are interfering with your sleep, rather than the other way around, then you should consider changing the foods you eat and the times that you eat them. The following are a list of suggestions for sleep-friendly diets.   

A light late-night snack may help combat insomnia. Foods with tryptophan, a natural sedative, help make you drowsy and ready for bed.  Warm milk and other dairy foods contain tryptophan, as do poultry, bananas, oats, and honey.  High-carbohydrate foods increase the amount of tryptophan circulating in your bloodstream.  Because carbs and milk products together effectively douse your body with tryptophan, light nighttime snacks that include high quantities of carbohydrate and dairy products may help you fall asleep.  Some examples of these snacks might be bread and cheese, cereal and milk, cereal and yogurt or crackers and yogurt.  

Not all food helps you sleep, however; if it's hard to digest, it has the opposite effect.  Protein takes a long time to digest; hence, meat and beans are not good choices for a bedtime snack.   Milk and dairy products also contain some protein, but its tendency to slow down digestion and therefore keep you awake are outweighed by the tryptophan that helps you fall asleep.   Heavy spicy food should be avoided any later than four hours before bedtime, because it fills your belly for hours before being fully digested, and your digestive system slows down when you are asleep.  The result is that you could wake up in the middle of the night with an upset stomach.  Carbohydrates with lots of sugar can cause you to wake up during the night with low blood sugar.   Heavy late-night meals that are hard to digest -- fried foods and rich sweets for example -- are likely to keep you awake because of the discomfort they cause.    Moreover, food and sleep scientists have discovered that the daytime consumption of high-fat foods such as hamburgers or French fries seems to get in the way of restful sleep at night. 

Caffeine, even in small amounts, is unquestionably a sleep-killer.   If you are having trouble falling asleep at night, avoid drinking any substance that might have even a trace of caffeine -- including decaffeinated coffee -- anytime after noon.   Stay away from tea, chocolate, colas and any medications with caffeine, such as diet pills, pain relievers, diuretics or cold medicines.    Some medicines contain more caffeine than a strong cup of coffee. 

Indeed, liquid of any kind, including water, may increase insomnia because it might cause you to wake up in the middle of the night so you can go to the bathroom.   A good rule of thumb is to stop drinking any fluids by 8 PM unless you are so thirsty that a parched mouth would keep you awake. 

In sum, t he combination of good sleep hygiene and careful attention to your diet, especially before going to sleep at night, are likely both to keep your weight down and to help you feel more rested. It's a no-brainer.