What to eat for a better night's sleep
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18 plus subscription required. Is there a food or drink that helps you sleep?
Lasagna. Lasagna? Yeah. Or mashed potatoes. Why? I mean, they're like my comfort food. I think anything with carbohydrates, because it just makes me full. Like bread. Toast. Cheese.
Cheese is so good. Doesn't give you bad dreams?
No. A banana. Apparently a banana is meant to be good. Yeah. That's what I give the kids. The only thing I think is magnesium supplements for adults. Yeah.
Maybe cucumber.
Can changing what you eat really improve your sleep quality?
Cucumber is one of the things that make people calm.
Normally when I eat better, I sleep better. So I normally go for pastas and things like that.
Probably a Prosecco spritz. Alcohol. Yeah, probably. Or like a roast dinner. That sends me to sleep. Yeah. I would say chamomile tea. Have one every night. That's so much better than mine.
Yeah.
For me, it's a cup of cocoa. But is it really helping? Can you eat or drink your way to a good night's sleep? I'm Ruth Alexander, and in today's episode of The Food Chain from the BBC World Service, we're going to find out... To help separate the myths from the scientific facts, I'm joined by Dr. Marie-Pierre Stange, Professor of Nutrition Medicine at Columbia University in New York and author of Eat Better, Sleep Better. And also Dr. Ali Herr, a consultant in sleep and respiratory medicine in London and president of the British Sleep Society. So how closely linked are your diet and the quality of your sleep? I asked Marie-Pierre Stange.
We've seen in multiple research now that individuals who have better dietary quality have a lower risk of developing sleep difficulties later in their life. And so, yes, there's a definite association between what you eat during the day and how you sleep at night. There have been multiple population-based studies that look at dietary patterns over long periods of time in large cohorts, showing that healthier dietary patterns are associated with better sleep and unhealthy dietary patterns are associated with worse sleep outcomes. There have been also smaller scale studies where we see exactly or we measure exactly in the lab what people are eating, and then get very detailed assessments of their sleep using sleep testing like polysomnography, where we get to measure their deep sleep.
So there have been those studies as well showing that there are certainly different nutrients that influence sleep.
And Ali, approaching it as a doctor, from what you see in your clinic talking to patients, are you convinced that what you eat influences how you sleep?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely true to say that I see what my patients do in the daytime, including what they eat and when they eat it, undoubtedly has an impact on the quality and the quantity as well of their sleep.
What are the most common questions people have for you about food and sleep? And do they bring food up a lot?
Yeah, increasingly so, because I think people are increasingly understanding that things like nutrition, exercise, light exposure are all really important in terms of the quality of the sleep we then obtain at nighttime. So I definitely say I'm seeing more interest from my patients about whether or not they can improve their diet in ways that will have impacts on their sleep. And we've always had questions about caffeine, for example, when we should have that and how much we should have. But increasingly, patients are asking me things about supplements to their diet or more generally, what they should eat and the timing of that food as well and how that might bring about improvements or indeed worsen their sleep.
What's the physiological reason for diet being so closely linked with sleep?
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