Diet Makes a Different in Getting Good Sleep

Natural health gurus tend to overlook the issue of insomnia. It's easy to find advice on losing weight by changing your sleep habits. There's even an "overnight diet" that touts losing weight by getting better sleep. It's a lot harder, however, to find good advice on getting good sleep by changing what you eat, killing two birds with one stone. Here are 10 tips on the changes in your diet that can help you get good sleep and that may coincidentally help you lose weight.

1. Milk and cookies aren't the ideal bedtime snack, but you could do worse.

For several generations many American mothers offered their children a glass of warm milk, or a glass of warm milk with cookies, to help them sleep better and do better in school. (Before about 1930 "warm" milk late in the evening would usually have been going sour.) Many adults still drink milk or eat dairy products 30 minutes to an hour before bedtime as part of their evening routine.

There's actually a scientific rationale for this bedtime snack. Milk is a good source of the amino acid tryptophan. The brain uses tryptophan to make serotonin, which keeps you upbeat during the day but helps you fall asleep at night. Tryptophan is transported into the brain more rapidly when your blood sugar is a little higher, hence the addition of cookies. The main downside of a milk and cookies snack is the added calories. If you have a weight problem, or you are diabetic or prediabetic, there are better alternatives.

2. Wheat grass and barley grass are ideal bedtime snacks from a physiological point of view.

Wheat grass and barley grass powders are great for helping you get to sleep. Wheat grass juice has a similar effect. These organic vegetable products provide calcium, potassium, and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), all of which help you gently fall asleep. Of course, not everyone likes the way they taste. They are usually disguised with juice or even in cookies, which can be high in sugar. You'll probably get a better result in terms of sleep from these products, assuming you don't brood and fret over how much they cost and how they taste.

3. Chamomile tea helps you sleep if you have allergies, arthritis, or chronic aches and pains.

Chamomile tea is anti-inflammatory, at least if you brew it at relatively low heat. The chamazulene in the herb that helps relieve pain and inflammation so you can get to sleep faster is bound to the essential oil, which evaporates if the herb is placed in boiling water. Most homes in Latin America and Hispanic homes in the United States and Canada stock Té Camomila, especially for controlling anxiety that interferes with sleep. You can usually get higher-quality herb at lower cost at markets that specialize in Latin American foods.

READ Foods That Help You Sleep: Fight Insomnia with Diet

4. Vinegar and Pickles at Dinner Interfere with Sleep

It may sound a little odd to advise against eating anything with vinegar or anything pickled more than four hours before bedtime, but avoiding these acidic foods actually makes a difference in how well you sleep. Here's the reason: Acidic foods slow down the release of digested food from your stomach. Going to bed on a full stomach can lead to bloat, gas, and heartburn, if you roll over on your stomach during the early night. Avoid eating these foods just before bed.

Six More Tips for Using Diet to Fight Insomnia

Changes in marijuana laws in the United States make the next tip timely.

5. Marijuana in your bedtime "cookies" is not necessarily helpful in helping you sleep.

Lots of pot enthusiasts get the idea that marijuana can cure any health condition, but that's not true of all strains of marijuana for any health condition, and it's certainly not true for marijuana for insomnia. Smoking marijuana is not ideal for treating sleep disorders. It's absolutely not a good idea to smoke marijuana in bed to get to sleep. However, orally administered marijuana may be helpful, even if it is taken in the middle of the night. Strains that are high in THC will make you stoned, not sleep. Strains that are high in CBD and a chemical called myrcene, especially if they are low in THC, can be helpful in getting too sleep. Pot you buy on the street illegally isn't tested for these chemicals. Pot you buy lawfully from a marijuana dispensary may be, but you need to ask your dealer about the specific strain for the specific health concern and then use the "herb" in the form, for insomnia, usually a food, that will really help.

6. Cherries, especially Montmorency cherries, will help you sleep.

Tart Montomorency cherries contain naturally occurring melatonin, the hormone that tells your brain it's time to go to sleep. Although there is a downside similar to that of milk and cookies, namely a high sugar content, either fresh cherries, or canned cherries, or even cherry pie can help you get to sleep faster. Ideally, eat cherries about half an hour before bedtime, and avoid eating cherries during the day. If you ever notice your guests drowsing off after you serve a black cherry sorbet or Cherries Jubilee at a dinner party, you'll see exactly how the effect works.

7. Don't just avoid too much caffeine at bedtime. Limit caffeine consumption all day long.

There are some real benefits from drinking coffee. It can, oddly enough, lower blood pressure. It can help with blood sugar regulation. However, if you drink too much caffeinated coffee during the day, you risk sleep problems even if you avoid coffee and other caffeinated beverages during the evening. The reason coffee and caffeine aggravate sleep problems is that they interfere with calcium absorption, and the calcium deficit interferes with your nervous system's settling down as you lie down at night.

8. Heavy, fatty meals can keep you falling asleep.

High-fat meals stay in your stomach longer. Eating a high-fat meal at dinner, or any time four to six hours before bedtime, can keep you from falling asleep because of the weight around your waist. If you're prone to gastroesophageal reflux disease, the lingering food in your stomach can also cause you heartburn. There are two ways to deal with this problem. One is simply not to eat a high-calorie high-fat meal in the evening. If you must eat too much fatty food at a social occasion, at least try to consume some bitter foods at the beginning of the meal to stimulate the secretion of stomach acid to send food downward faster.

READ Sleep Your Pounds Away: The Best Foods To Eat Before Bed

9. Almonds and oatmeal earlier in the day help you get to sleep more readily.

Like milk, almonds and oatmeal provide the tryptophan your brain uses to make serotonin. Unlike milk, the tryptophan from these foods is released into the bloodstream more slowly so you need to eat them earlier in the day.

10. Some foods keep you awake. Avoid them.

There are certain foods that often interfere with sleep. These are foods that are high in the amino acid tyramine (not to be confused with tryptophan), which is particularly abundant in stinky cheeses, red wine, smoked fish, sauerkraut, aged ham, aged sausages, salami, soy sauce, Marmite, and certain kinds of beer, especially draft beer.