Take Care Of Yourself to Sleep Well: Foods To Help You Prevent Insomnia

If you have insomnia or you wake up eagerly in the middle of the night, you might be tempted to take sleeping pills. This is the easy road to sleep better, but it creates other problems. Once you stop taking these sleeping pills, you’ll have a hard time falling asleep and you’ll wake up groggy. Before turning to pills, you should try some other natural insomnia treatments that will help you sleep, like foods to help you prevent insomnia. Below, we’ll give you some ideas on how to eat to avoid insomnia.

Foods to help prevent insomnia

Foods and Drinks that May Affect Your Sleep

Before adding things to your diet that will help you sleep better, you should identify what you’re eating now that may be keeping you from sleeping so you can eliminate them from your diet first. Alcohol, caffeine, and sugar all affect your sleep habits.

-Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, chocolate, and many sodas. You should avoid drinking any of these at least five hours before you get in bed. The older we get, the more caffeine affects us, so as we get older we may have to cut back on our caffeine intake.

-Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but it makes it difficult to actually rest, and it causes us to wake up groggy and tired. Alcohol prevents us from having a deep sleep and causes us to wake up more often throughout the night. Alcohol contains large amounts of sugar, which contributes to this poor sleep.

-High blood sugar makes us feel hyper, but once we use up that energy we get a sugar crash that alters your sleep pattern. This is why sugar is a bad source of energy.

-Digestive problems make it difficult to rest, which is why you should find out the most common causes of indigestion and learn how to avoid them. Don’t eat too much right before going to sleep and try to eat lightly. It also goes without saying that you should avoid foods that you’re allergic to or have an intolerance to.

Foods and drinks that help you sleep

Some foods can help you keep a steady energy level throughout the day. This will keep you from getting fatigued and stressed, and it will also help you feel and sleep better. This is a list of the foods that can help you sleep better:

-Foods rich in proteins like cheese, eggs, fish, and lean meat.

-Fresh fruit, juice, and dried fruits don’t have the same effects.

It’s also important to drink water to sleep well because it helps with digestion and doesn’t use any energy. You should drink 8 glasses of water a day.

Foods rich in tryptophan may also help avoid sleep problems. Tryptophan is an amino acid that helps develop the proteins in meat, fish, vegetables, and eggs (think post-turkey Thanksgiving coma). These foods can help you sleep faster and better, which is why it is important to get enough.

Foods rich in calcium and magnesium help you calm your mind and have sedative effects. These are a few more:

-Lettuce

-Complex carbohydrates like rice and pasta

-Mandarin juice

Herbal teas also help you fall asleep, some of the most helpful are chamomile, lemon balm, passionflower, and linden.

Vitamins and minerals that help us sleep

Lastly, you can take supplements that can help us sleep better. It is best to get these vitamins through food, but if you can’t for whatever reason, the vitamins and minerals that help us sleep are vitamin B, vitamin C, calcium, and magnesium.

Before starting to take supplements, you should talk to a doctor or nutritionist. They’ll be able to give you more advice on foods to help you prevent insomnia