Written by Sara Novak
You’ve heard it a thousand times: if you want to fall asleep you have to give up caffeine. So you’ve done that and you still can’t seem to sleep through the night. Well, your diet has a huge bearing on the way you feel especially if a sleep deficiency has become a part of your life. Choose foods that promote sleep rather than keeping you up all night.
5 Foods To Prevent Insomnia:
1. Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkin seeds are a great source of magnesium which serves to calm the body down. Magnesium helps to relieve the stress that can keep us up all night. Just 1 oz. of pumpkin seeds has 151 mg of magnesium, making it one of the most magnesium-rich foods out there.
2. Cottage Cheese
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Cottage cheese contains tryptophan, a sleep inducing amino acid that relaxes the entire body and mind. If you don’t do dairy you can also find tryptophan in soy milk, tofu, hummus, and lentils.
3. Sesame Seeds
Sesame seeds are rich in trytophan but they’re also high in carbohydrates with a medium protein content, perfect for before bedtime.
4. Brown Rice
Photo: Eising
Whole unrefined grains like brown rice have a calming effect on the mind. They soothe the nervous system so that the mind stops moving a mile a minute and you can fall asleep. Also consider oats for a similar effect.
5. Spinach
Chlorophyll-rich foods like spinach help you get to sleep. Spinach, like pumpkin seeds, is also loaded with magnesium, which calms and de-stresses the entire body.
5 Foods that Promote Insomnia
1. Refined Carbohydrates
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These drain the body of vitamin B, which the body needs to release serotonin. When the body can’t get enough serotonin, tension, fear, and depression can keep you up all night.
2. MSG
Monosodium glutamate (MSG), often found in Chinese food, causes a stimulant reaction in some people. MSG is almost always found in processed, prepared, and packaged foods. Here’s a list of surprising places that MSG hides.
3. Bacon
Photo: Jupiterimages
Bacon contains tyramine, which increases the release of norepinephrine, a brain stimulant that keeps you up. Others foods that contain tyramine include chocolate, eggplant, ham, potatoes, sauerkraut, sugar, sausage, tomatoes, and wine.
4. Alcohol
While many of us drink to relax the body and mind, the fact of the matter is that wine, beer, and spirits can keep you up at night. This is especially true if you drink more than one. While alcohol can make you tired in the short run, you’re likely to awaken in the middle of the night.
5. Chocolate
Photo: Jupiterimages
Chocolate can elevate your energy levels with bioactive compounds like tyramine and phenylethylamine. Chocolate also contains sugar which wakes you up as well as the other obvious culprit, caffeine.
Beyond your diet, yoga is another great way to help you sleep. Here are some yoga and meditation practices to keep you calm and collected.
Bonus:
Tryptophan is a myth. As outlined in research included below.
Purified tryptophan is a mild sleep-inducing agent and that probably led to the idea that foods containing heavy doses of the chemical cause drowsiness.
But tryptophan can’t function well as part of a meal.
“Tryptophan is taken to the brain by an active transport system shared by a number of other amino acids and there’s competition among them — like a crowd of people trying to get through a revolving door,” Simon Young, a neurochemist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, told National Geographic News.
He said consuming tryptophan-rich foods may cause blood levels of the amino acid to rise, but not enough tryptophan will reach one’s brain to have a sedative affect.