As we've previously discussed, breakfast is the most significant meal of the day as it allows us to break the eight or more-hour fast we set for ourselves the night before. However, did you realize that our evening meal choices might also affect our health?
If we choose the improper food and beverages for our final meal or snack of the day, we may experience disruptions to the duration and caliber of our sleep. The rare sleepless night leaves us exhausted and unable to function the next day.
However, a persistent lack of high-quality sleep can negatively impact our capacity to think clearly, make judgments, and uphold our relationships with partners, family, and coworkers. It may lead us to make bad decisions about our lifestyle and potentially increase our chance of an accident or heart attack. The food we select to eat in the evening may also contribute to weight gain as we sleep.
Here are some meals to love and some to avoid in the hours before bed!
1. refined carbs
Foods like white bread and pasta that have been processed to remove the wheatgerm from the wheat are examples of refined carbs. The more natural color and nutrients seen in unprocessed brown bread and pasta come from wheatgerm.
Refined carbs may include sugar-filled meals and beverages. These foods have a high GI because our digestive tract breaks them down fast into simple sugars when we eat them. Blood sugar levels are swiftly raised by high GI meals, and any extra sugar is subsequently stored as fat.
Avoiding or limiting these meals is thought to be healthy, and they can be even more harmful to our waistlines if we consume them right before bed when we don't have time to burn them off.
2. Diuretic foods
Foods rich in water content that cause us to urinate more frequently are known as diuretics. Eating a lot of diuretic meals in the hours before bed may cause us to wake up frequently during the night to use the restroom, which will lower the quality of our sleep.
Diuretic foods include watermelon, cranberries, beets, celery, cucumbers, and citrus fruits. All of these are nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods that belong in a balanced, healthful diet.
However, it would be worthwhile to think about eating these items during lunchtime rather than in the evening if you discover that you're using the restroom a lot at night. Similarly, with water, aim to consume most of your eight glasses in one sitting.
3. Alcohol
It might be easy to grab for a glass of wine—and maybe even another—after a demanding, long day. After that, we could drowze off and go to bed as soon as our heads touch the pillows. Fantastic for slumber, huh? Not invariably...
Our bodies release the stress hormone cortisol when we consume alcohol. Thus, despite the fact that we may appear to be less anxious, we are actually more stressed. Excessive cortisol levels have been associated with weight gain, inflammation, and an increased risk of chronic illnesses including type 2 diabetes and heart disease over time.
Additionally, while alcohol may help us fall asleep faster, it will decrease our chances of reaching the critical REM stage of sleep, which is when dreams come true. We'll become bored of this and It might be easy to grab for a glass of wine—and maybe even another—after a demanding, long day. After that, we could drowze off and go to bed as soon as our heads touch the pillows. Fantastic for slumber, huh? Not invariably...
Our bodies release the stress hormone cortisol when we consume alcohol. Thus, despite the fact that we may appear to be less anxious, we are actually more stressed. Excessive cortisol levels have been associated with weight gain, inflammation, and an increased risk of chronic illnesses including type 2 diabetes and heart disease over time.
Additionally, while alcohol may help us fall asleep faster, it will decrease our chances of reaching the critical REM stage of sleep, which is when dreams come true. We'll become bored of this and sluggish the following day.
4. Chocolate
Few individuals don't find chocolate bars to be a delightful treat. However, as the fizzy drink example taught us, sugar may interfere with our sleep cycles and cause chronic lifestyle disorders. This is particularly true if we consume sugary meals right before bed.
Additionally, chocolate naturally includes caffeine, which interferes with our sleep cycles and leaves us feeling exhausted, unmotivated, and lethargic the following day. Generally speaking, the amount of caffeine in chocolate increases with its darkness.
There's more! Theobromine, another stimulant found in chocolate, is responsible for the happy feeling we get from eating it. But if we consume chocolate right before bed, it might also keep us awake. If we're really sensitive, this might be especially harmful to our ability to sleep.
5. Spicy foods
Spicy meals like curry, chilli, and others can disrupt our sleep cycles for a number of reasons. They can, first of all, cause indigestion and acid reflux, which can be so severe that they keep us from falling asleep.
Additionally, if we eat a big, spicy meal in the evening and then go to bed before it has had time to fully digest, the stomach acid that is working hard to break down the food may travel up and cause heartburn, which will again keep us from getting a good night's sleep.
Lastly, consuming hot, spicy food may momentarily raise our body temperature; this may have a detrimental impact on our ability to sleep as well, as elevated body temperatures have been connected to restless nights. It is therefore recommended to eat spicy food as early in the evening as possible.
6. Coffee
It should come as no surprise that coffee is probably the worst beverage to drink in the evening since it throws off our circadian rhythm. Adenosine receptors in the brain are blocked by caffeine, a stimulant that activates the central nervous system. Adenosine can bind to these receptors and cause drowsiness if they aren't inhibited.
During the day, coffee helps us be more focused and productive. However, excessive drinking (usually defined as more than four standard cups a day, ideally before noon) might make it difficult for us to go asleep.
Caffeine use six hours before bed really "reduced total sleep time by one hour," according to one research. The cycle then resumes when we wake up the following day feeling exhausted and grab for ever-larger amounts of coffee.
7. Salty snacks
If we don't have a sweet tooth, crisps, pretzels, salted almonds, and popcorn all make excellent snacks. However, they can also negatively impact our sleep.
According to an intriguing study, individuals who ate a salty snack before bedtime slept later and woke up more times during the night. It's crucial to have deep sleep, which is when our heart and breathing rates go down and we experience complete relaxation. But in order to get a decent night's sleep, we also require restorative REM sleep, which occurs when our brain activity increases and we start dreaming. According to this study, eating salty foods might put us into a deep slumber that prevents us from getting REM sleep, leaving us feeling groggy and unrested.
8. Greasy foods
Our digestive systems are put under a lot of strain when we eat foods high in saturated fat, such as processed and red meats, takeout, deep-fried foods, and some prepared meals.
These meals need a lot of energy from our intestines to digest, telling the brain that it's still daylight and we should be sleeping, which throws off our sleep cycles.
According to sleep research, having a high-fat supper will make us wake up more during the night and reduce the amount of time we spend in rapid eye movement (REM), or restorative dream-state sleep. It can also have an impact on our breathing as we sleep, which can result in acid reflux-related sleep disruptions.
9. Ice cream
A delicious, decadent treat, ice cream and other creamy sweets and cakes are frequently consumed as dessert in the late evening. However, because they are heavy in fat and sugar, they may negatively impact our ability to sleep.
Foods based on dairy that are heavy in sugar and fat require a long time to digest. As a result, even if we consume them in the evening before going to bed, the process of digesting them will still require energy. Save these delicacies for Saturday lunchtime; you don't need us to tell you how difficult it is to go to sleep on an empty stomach!
10. Fizzy drinks
Drinking high-sugar beverages like sodas, colas, and other fizzy drinks right before bed, when we're at our least active, might cause weight gain. They frequently include caffeine as well, particularly cola, which is widely recognized for keeping us awake—exactly what we need right before bed.
Research indicates that those who consistently sleep for fewer than five hours every night are more prone to consuming sugar-filled, caffeine-infused beverages than those who get the required seven to eight hours of sleep on most evenings. Fizzy beverages not only interfere with our sleep, but they also raise our risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.