Jess Cording

But sometimes that's precipitated by a steep increase in blood sugar and then it drops pretty quickly.

So you're going to see that more often if you are eating, say, like really high sugar, high carbohydrate foods, maybe without enough protein, fat and or fiber to slow down that digestive process.

So that is something to be aware of.

That's why...

having a balanced meal before, before bed is definitely recommended as opposed to like a giant bowl of pasta.

So what you may find is maybe you've heard the term carb coma.

So what initially happens is that there is an initial increase or your body in order to digest that carbohydrate in a healthy working pancreas, it will release insulin to make to help process that.

That starch that's beginning to enter the bloodstream is carbohydrate.

Because what happens when we eat any kind of starch, pasta is an example, as we digest that food, the molecules, the starch molecules break down to smaller and smaller pieces and then enter our bloodstream as, you know, like glucose, fructose, for example.

And then they go to all the cells that need it to do their jobs.

And we need some.

That's important.

But what happens initially as our body is trying to help with that process of getting the

carbs to where they need to go in the body.

It releases insulin, which also has the effect of increasing our body's absorption of amino acids.

And one that a lot of people have heard about is tryptophan, which is found in Thanksgiving turkey gets the most airtime, but you're going to find it in other animal proteins.

You're going to find it in like oats, chickpeas, a few other foods.

And that actually has been shown to help promote sleep.

So what you may find is if you eat

a lot of carbs all at once, you may get really sleepy really quickly.