Foods To Avoid Before Bed: 6 Worst Foods To Eliminate From Diet

In this article, we’ll discuss the need to monitor what you eat before sleeping and the foods to avoid before bed.

Overview

Nutrition rich diets are important for your immune system and help in leading a healthy lifestyle. But to select what type of nutrient to be taken at what time of the day is an important factor that must be considered, but is yet avoided by many. This is also known as “nutrient timing”.

Nutrient timing is the intake of macronutrients as per a plan to promote better health and lifestyle. It is based on how our body handles certain types of food at a certain time of the day. For example, carbs are one of the three essential macronutrients alongside protein and fat.

No matter how nutrition-packed the food is, it will not provide half the benefits as it can if not eaten at an appropriate time of the day. For example, carbs take time to digest and the glucose derived from it should be used as energy which can be used throughout the day to work.

So, according to this analysis, the best time of eating carbs would be daytime so that it can be utilized as energy while the worst would be at night, because that is the time our body goes into rest, slowing down the metabolism. Nighttime carb-consumption means your body won’t be able to give the required time to digest the food properly causing the undigested calories to be stored as fat.

We often hear that breakfast is the most important meal of the day; rather, what we don’t understand is that every meal has its importance and that every food has to be eaten at a preferable time of the day to actually provide its benefits to individuals.

Now, as there is a requirement of the selection of the best time to eat a particular food (timing of meals); likewise, there is a requirement to avoid particular foods at a particular time. This is what this article deals with: foods to avoid before sleep time.

Also Read: Best Foods That Help You Sleep Better

Why Track What You Eat Before Bed?

What is the need to monitor what you eat before going to bed? Well, the answer is simple. Exercise, diet, and sleep go hand in hand. A healthy diet can do wonders for your irregular sleep patterns and is the key to enhance the quality of a person’s sleep cycles.

A sleep-promoting diet requires nutrients that can be digested easily. and to avoid food that causes sleep troubles. If you are eating clean, exercising regularly but not taking adequate sleep then it will cause discrepancies in your efforts of having a lean body and a healthy lifestyle.

Your diet patterns affect your nighttime sleep; if a proper diet is not followed you will have disturbed sleep and if you don’t get quality and considerate amount of sleep then you will end up having a bigger appetite and eating food high in sugar and fat. Thus, this is a vicious circle and we don’t have an answer as to the question of what among both affects the other.

Sleep is thus interlinked to what we eat, how much we eat when we eat, and how much physical activity we do.

Researchers have shown that it is advisable to consume more of our calories at the beginning of the day instead of having them at night just before going to bed. When our body produces ‘melatonin’ (sleep hormone), our body is at rest and we won’t have any chance to digest the food properly which is frowned upon as the body will need a lot of energy to break it down.

The digestive system also needs to relax to detoxify which will lead to the storage of food in the stomach and thus, higher body fat.

Foods To Avoid Before Bed

The list is indefinite because of the large variety of foods but it still it can be identified under the following categories:

1. Caffeine

A high dosage of coffee, chocolates, energy drinks, and any other food/drink which contains caffeine disturbs sleep. If you won’t get adequate sleep, you might feel sleepy the next whole day and to prevent it you may choose to drink caffeine to stay awake which will again affect your sleep pattern. This may also lead to insomnia.

2. Spicy Food

These foods are known to cause irritation on your tongue and raising body temperature and thus making you feel restless. It may irritate the stomach causing acid reflux or heartburn (unpleasant burning sensation in the chest) which will make it hard to fall asleep or may lead to staying up all night. Also, spiced food at night may cause an increase in acidity levels in the stomach which may worsen the problem of acid reflux.

3. Alcohol

It upsets the most remedial phase of sleep (called REM sleep), making an individual feel groggier and less refreshed toward the beginning of the next day. It will also disrupt your sleeping pattern as you may have a frequent need to get up and go to the bathroom during the second half of the night. Further, drinking alcohol before bed may cause insomnia and other sleeping disorders like sleepwalking or sleep-eating.

4. Fatty Foods

Fatty foods take time to be digested; that’s why you must avoid such foods before bedtime. The body will require a lot of energy to break it down which will cause discomfort while you are asleep or trying to get sleep. Therefore, it advisable to eat such foods in the daytime so that energy can be utilized over the day while working, and not before bed. It also leads to weight gain and is often linked to bloating, diabetes, and obesity.

5. Acidic Foods

Acidic foods like tomato and any other food which has processed tomato in any form may cause indigestion, constipation, and heartburn. It worsens the situation if the person is already suffering from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

6. Sugar

Sugar reduces sleep quality. Consuming more sugar is linked to more restless, disrupted sleep. High sugar raises insulin levels and high insulin levels make it difficult to fall asleep. People tend to take a while longer before falling asleep if they had sugar before going to bed.

Foods To Avoid Before Bed: Conclusion

After having disrupted sleep, people may blame work stress, uncomfortable sleep position, or any other external factors. But the other most prominent disrupter of sleep that they don’t consider is their late-night snack. Wrong foods either prevent the body from unwinding and make it hard to fall asleep or they invigorate the body, keeping you conscious regardless of whether you are drained and need to fall asleep!

Sleep is without a moment’s delay one of the best delights and greatest necessities of life. Avoid choosing the wrong food and begin on including the correct food to slide yourself into a serene night’s sleep.