5 Eating Healthier is Sleeping Better Tips
You may be eating everything right to improve your health and energy, but still you don’t seem to feel healthy or good. You may have been following the most recommended health eating tips, but still can’t achieve the desired result.
The problem may be more than your health eating tips; it may be your quality of sleeping. More often than not, people don’t focus on their sleep as they are busy with work and kids. They usually assume that following few health eating tips will help them improve their health. But few health eating tips are not enough.
You need to improve your sleep quality to improve your health and here are five health eating tips that can improve your health.
Health Eating Tips # 1: Avoid Caffeine, Nicotine, Alcohol and Other Sleep Interfering Chemical
If you are a coffee lover, you may know it too well that caffeine is a stimulant that keep avert sleep and keep you awake.
Caffeine is actually a great wake-me-up beverage, which can make you alert and energized. So, one of the important health eating tips to better sleep is to avoid caffeine found in coffee, tea, cola, chocolate and few pain relievers four to six hours before bed time.
Likewise, smokers should avoid using tobacco products close to bed time as nicotine also inhibits sleep. In addition, alcoholic beverages should also be avoided before bed time.
Alcohol may bring on sleep, but after few hours, it starts acting as a stimulant increasing the number of awakenings and reducing the quality of sleep later in the night. So, you should restrict the consumption of alcohol to one to two drinks per day or less. Also, avoid drinking alcohol within three hours of bed time.
Health Eating Tips # 2: Eat Light Evening Meals
If you are in a habit of eating rich, heavy meals late in the evening or night, let alone mid-night snacking can actually compromise your sleep quality. Eating a pepperoni pizza or hamburger at 10 p.m. is a recipe for insomnia. You should aim at finishing dinner several hours before bed time and avoid meals that cause indigestion or take a lot of work to digest such as fatty food. You should try to eat light meals early in the evening as one of the useful health eating tips. It helps improve your health and your sleep. In case you get hungry at night and can’t control it, snack on food such as dairy food, carbs as they usually don’t interfere with sleep. In addition to improving sleep, it is one of health eating tips that can help you lose weight.
Health Eating Tips # 3: Try Tart Cherry Juice and Dairy Products
Studies have shown that melatonin-rich tart cherry juice can actually help you sleep.
It has been seen that when adults with chronic insomnia included a glass of tart cherry juice twice a day, they experience relief in the severity of their condition.
In addition, researchers have also discovered that a glass of tart cherry juice can make you fall asleep faster as it improves the levels of melatonin. It also improves the quality of your sleep so that you feel fresh and alert in the morning.
When you were a kid, your mother may bring you a glass a warm milk to help you sleep, but you never thought it as one of the health eating tips to better sleep. It is not just an old wives tale; rather it is a helpful health eating tips for sleep and health. Milk contains amino acid tryptophan, which is an antecedent to the brain chemical serotonin. It is believed that serotonin and tryptophan can make it easier for your brain to fall asleep.
In addition, dairy products such as yogurt and milk can improve the calcium to healthy levels and according to research, calcium deficient can make it hard to fall asleep.
Health Eating Tips # 4: Consider Supplements
Often, we think that we are following every health eating tips there is to get the essential nutrients but it is not true. It is hard to regularly follow every necessary health eating tips to get enough nutrients from foods. So, if you are struggle with sleep or health challenge, you can supplement your existing health eating tips with supplements to get all the important nutrients. There are many supplements that can help you improve sleep.
- Fermented Cod Liver Oil/ High Vitamin Butter Oil Blend when taken in the morning and night can improve your sleep quality. It contains fat soluble vitamins A, D and K along with Omega-3s that improve sleep.
- Few tablespoons of coconut oil combined with a cup of herbal tea per day helps in the production of sleep hormones.
- Magnesium deficiency can have a big effect on sleep quality, so adding a magnesium rich supplement 30 minutes before bed time can improve sleep.
Health Eating Tips # 5: Focus on Your Food Intake
Foods can impact sleep just as it has effects on other areas of health. It is one of the health eating tips that can improve sleep as well as your overall health. There are foods that can help you improve the quality of your sleep:
- Fish: Most types of fish such as salmon, tuna and halibut improve vitamin B6 in the body which is required to manufacture melatonin, which is a sleep inducing hormone.
- Jasmine Rice: Eating carbohydrate rich supper of vegetables and tomato sauce with rice can help you fall asleep faster than if the rice used is high-glycemic index jasmine rice rather than lower-glycemic index long grain rice.
- Whole Grains: Whole grains such as barley, bulgur, etc. are rich in magnesium and magnesium deficiency makes it harder to stay asleep.
- Kale: In addition to dairy products, green leafy vegetables such as collards and kale also boost calcium level and calcium deficient make it hard to fall asleep.
- Chickpeas: Chickpeas are high in vitamin B6, a nutrient needed to make melatonin – a sleep inducing hormone.
There are countless benefits to a good night sleep including keeping a sharp brain, improved immune system, reduced waistline, glowing skin, lower risk of heart disease and blood pressure, in short good overall health. These health eating tips can actually help you improve your sleep and in turn your health.
