Tasty Tuesdays - Sleep
Today’s Tasty Tuesday, we are talking about Sleep. Nutrition and sleep play a fundamental role in our health, and often the relationship between the two are overlooked. Nutrition can heavily influence the quality of sleep as certain foods and drinks can make it easier or harder to get the sleep that you need. Sleep helps maintain a healthy body weight and benefits the body’s ability to lose fat. By recognizing the connection between sleep and nutrition, you can optimize both and create the change of eating smarter, sleeping better, and living a healthier life. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how these two elements affect one another.
Nutrition > Sleep:
Key nutrients. One of the best ways to increase the quality of your sleep is making sure your diet is full of the necessary nutrients. Keep your diet full of calcium, magnesium, and vitamins A,D,E, and K to improve the hormonal pathways that involve your sleep.
Lower carbohydrate dinners. High carbohydrate intake before you sleep has been shown to increase the amount of times you wake up in the night and reduces the amount of deep sleep you get.
Sleep > Nutrition:
Unnecessary eating. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body responds to sleep deprivation by trying to increase your energy through food. This leads to eating more without expending the same amount of energy.
Hormonal imbalance. Sleep produces hormones that regulate and suppress hunger during the night. Even with short periods of inadequate sleep, the normal production of these hormones that help control your appetite are thrown off, making it difficult to maintain your normal eating schedule.
There are so many ways to make sure you are doing everything you can to have a healthy relationship between your sleep and nutrition. However, the best place to start is to develop a schedule for both your nutrition and your sleep. Even just knowing when you are going to eat and sleep can make a big difference in your habits. Once you establish these daily habits, the rest of the benefits have a much higher chance of falling into place.
If you have any further questions about sleep or what a health schedule that includes both nutrition and sleep looks like for you, use the link below to schedule an appointment with me!