Thursday, May 23, 2013

These foods that can wreck your sleep

Junk Food

No surprises here. High fat, high sugar processed food is a really bad idea before bed. Fatty foods over stimulate the production of acid in the stomach. This can lead to heartburn and indigestion. Sugary junk  foods, including soda, rapidly crank up your blood sugar levels. You might fall asleep easily (the “sugar crash”), but during the night when your blood sugar plummets, your body will sense this chemical imbalance, disturbing your sleep cycle, possibly waking you up.

Chocolate

Chocolate in it’s unrefined form is actually quite healthy for you. Raw cacao, the bean that chocolate is processed from contains loads of antioxidants and essential minerals and amino acids. A real superfood if ever there was one. However, chocolate also happens to contain natural stimulants1 including caffeine, theobromine and phenylethylamine. In addition, processed chocolate contains lots of sugar, which as we know can cause a  ’sugar high’.

Spicy Foods

Unless you have a cast iron stomach, avoiding hot and spicy foods before bedtime just seems like common sense.A study2 showed that foods such tabasco sauce and mustard showed marked changes in male subjects, reducing the overall amount of stage 2 light sleep and stages 3 & 4 of deep sleep. Whilst indigestion is a likely cause for the sleep zapping effects, the subjects also exhibited elevated body temperatures, suggesting the hot spices were interfering with the body’s natural thermoregulation process.

Leafy Greens

Green vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts are high in fiber. Depending on how well your body digest carbohydrates, these vegetables can often be resonsible for producing excess gas in the stomach. Symptoms can include burping, passing wind, bloating and even abdominal pain. If greens affect you in any of these ways, it’s best to avoid them before bed time.


Preserved Meats

Bacon, ham, pepperoni and all preserved meats contain an amino acid called tyramine. Tyramine causes the adrenal gland to release the neurotransmitter norepinephrine which is part of our brain’s ‘flight or flight’ mechanism. This can make you feel alert and agitated, not the ideal state you want to be in at bedtime. Tyramine also occurs in aged cheeses, sauerkraut and some vegetables.


Alcohol

If you’re fond of a night-cap to send you off, you may be making things worse than better. Although alcohol has a sedative effect, it’s effects are short lasting it interrupts your natural sleep cycles.3  In the latter stages of your sleep, when REM (rapid eye movement) occurs more frequently, sleep is often interrupted causing you to stir easily in the night. This often causes drinkers to wake early from their slumber without feeling as if they have slept properly.