Aside from a balanced diet and proper exercise, having a good night’s sleep is essential to sustain your body’s well-being. Sleeping sounds too easy, but there could be several factors to hinder your sleeping schedule. Several factors include psychological stress, clinging to so much electronics, and overeating affects your sleeping.
Good thing, there are certain food types that you can consume before you go to bed that can affect your sleeping cycle. Foods that are high in sugar and saturated fat can make you turning and tossing in your bed. These foods should not be consumed before sleeping since they can make your body wide awake.
The right food for sleeping before bedtime is healthy snacks that can boost your sleep. These foods can make you complete enough to have a comfortable rest. Typical selections include bananas and apples, which are known breakfast food. Little did some know that these fruits can also be eaten as bed snacks to help you doze off.
Is it Bad to Eat Bananas Before Bed?
Sleeping problems can deteriorate your immune system, which can affect your overall health. If this pattern becomes continuous, it can already be a form of insomnia. Insomnia is a form of sleep disorder that can be described by the difficulty of staying asleep and/or falling asleep enough for your body to replenish its nutrients. Lack of proper sleep may lead to lethargy, unwellness, and daytime sleepiness.
While bananas are considered an energizing food, bananas are also associated with the overall improvement of your sleeping cycle. Researches show that bananas contain several nutrients related to the advancement of sleeping and relaxation. Bananas contain magnesium, tryptophan, and other nutrients that can overall improve your sleep quality.
A single piece of banana can provide 34 milligrams of magnesium, an element known to enhance one’s sleeping. Magnesium can improve the sleeping process by maintaining the person’s normal circadian cycle. The circadian cycle or internal body clock is responsible for maintaining adequate sleep for your body to sustain wakefulness.
Supplementing your body with enough magnesium can also aid in producing melatonin. This hormone is scientifically proven to provide healthier sleep patterns. Melatonin can reduce the required time for you to fall asleep, thus increasing your overall sleeping time. Aside from magnesium, bananas are also known to provide an essential amino acid called tryptophan.
Tryptophan is an amino acid that can only be gathered from eating fruits containing it. Bananas can produce enough tryptophan in which your body cannot deliver. Several tests also release that tryptophan can improve your sleeping cycle by increasing your sleeping time, reducing the struggle of falling asleep, and waking at nighttime. This amino acid is also converted into serotonin. This hormone is known to improve your sleeping pattern by aiding your body’s melatonin levels.
Other nutrients found in a banana that can improve your sleep quality include carbohydrates and potassium. Carbohydrates are not only energy-providing food, it can also help increase the chance of tryptophan from entering your brain cells. As mentioned earlier, this amino acid can be converted into melatonin and serotonin, improving your overall sleeping. On the other hand, low amounts of potassium can hinder people with high blood pressure from getting a good night’s sleep.
Are Apples Good Before Bed?
People rely on the myth that apples contain the same amount of caffeine in a strong brewed coffee. Caffeine is often associated with increased alertness, thus reducing the chance of sleeping soundly. However, none of those were true—apples contain zero milligrams of caffeine! Eating apples can be an excellent alternative to bananas—providing enough nutrients for you to sleep well.
Apples provide a fantastic source of fiber which can improve your sleeping in numerous ways. First, fiber-enrich foods can satiate your hunger—which will not disturb your sleep. The stomach still processes while you are asleep, and it is faster than its usual pace. This is why you wake up suddenly while sleeping since that is your body’s signal to consume food.
The second reason fiber is important to induce sleeping is that it allows your body to absorb essential nutrients faster and more efficiently. Fiber is responsible for breaking down food into workable sizes, which helps your digestive tract to process food more tightly than usual. When the stomach is not working hard than average, it works at its normal pace—lessening the chance for you to awake.
Apples are also jam-packed with vitamins and minerals that are known to provide nourishment to support sleep. Several vitamins and minerals include vitamin B6, vitamin C, potassium, and polyphenols. This is why apples can be considered an excellent alternative to bananas as your late-night snack.
Vitamin B6 or pyridoxine is responsible for providing energy for your body to convert food into glucose and metabolizing protein and fat to your diet. While this is somewhat related to promoting weight loss, this process is essential to deliver melatonin and serotonin faster. Deficiency in this vitamin may result in insomnia, depression, and other illnesses related to lack of sleep.
Like vitamin B6, lack of vitamin C can cause problems related to lack of sleep. Vitamin C is essential to prevent stress, sleep deprivation, and restless leg syndrome. These complications contribute to the reduction of proper rest for your body to replenish better. Consuming foods rich in vitamin C like apples can improve your cognitive function, thus allowing your brain to absorb sleep-inducing enzymes.
Polyphenols found in apples can maintain your healthy body by keeping it functional for sufficient time. This mineral is also related to burning your fat faster, thus helping your digestive tract absorb more nourishments to your body, including melatonin and serotonin. Combined with other fruits like bananas, apples can improve your overall sleeping pattern in no time.
What is the Best Time to Eat Banana or Apple?
Consuming bananas or apples at a certain period provides different body functions. The answer depends on what kind of energy and nourishment you precisely needed for you to function well. Either way, fruits like bananas and apples can provide sufficient nutrients as workout food, a healthy daily meal, and a light late-night snack.
If you want to improve your body coordination for your daily training, eating bananas and apple can satiate hunger, provides carbohydrates and other nutrients, reduce sore muscles, allows faster body recovery, and burns fat faster. Apples contain sugar that can be converted into glycogen that can repair your sore muscle more quickly. Bananas have a higher content of potassium that allows your body to repair cells faster.
Introducing fruits to your daily diet can also give you better meal options. Fruits are generally low in calories, soluble fat, and sugars. These materials found in several foods are associated with increased weight, sleep depletion, and psychological disturbance that can affect one’s lifestyle.
Fruits can also be included in your late-night snack to improve your sleeping habits. It has low sugar and no caffeine that can alert your body to stay awake for longer hours. Apples and bananas strengthen your digestion, which is essential to prevent your stomach from overworking. An overworked digestive tract can send a signal to your body while you’re asleep, thus disrupting your sleep cycle.
What is the Best Fruit to Eat at Night?
There are different reasons why you cannot sleep well. It can be due to intense work stress, noise coming from the outside, blue light-emitting outside your room. These can contribute to the overall disruption of your sleeping pattern. This is why eating foods such as fruits can improve your sleeping pattern. A proper meal is not only vital during workouts and the usual table setting—but your body also needs food to improve your sleeping.
As mentioned earlier, your body still digests while you are sleeping—and it works faster than its usual pace. This is why you feel hungry all of a sudden, making you eat before you go back to sleep again. Dieticians and researchers suggest eating food that is light yet can make you complete. At the same time, it can supplement nourishments to your body.
While light chicken noodle soup and kale salads can be considered, the easiest to go through are fruits. You can peel the fruit away from its skin and consume it quickly. Aside from bananas and apples, here are some fruits that you can eat before you get your daily ZZZs.
- Kiwi – Like bananas and apples, kiwi contains several vitamins and minerals associated with improving one’s sleeping cycle. It can also aid in helping your body to produce a high concentration of serotonin, which is essential for you to sleep well.
- Tart cherries – Tart cherries are a variant of cherry that has a sweet-sour taste. Consuming cherries is proven to improve your sleeping cycle by increasing your sleeping time and efficiency.
- Nuts – Nuts are fruits, the drier side of fruit. Eating certain nuts like walnuts, cashews, almonds, and pistachios can supply your body’s source of magnesium and zinc. Eating foods rich in the said minerals can prevent sleep-related illnesses like insomnia.
