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Is your diet keeping you up at night?

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Is your diet keeping you up at night?

If, like many, you struggle with getting enough sleep, it’s worth considering the role food and drink choices play in your sleep patterns. Many things can affect your sleep… including routine, stress, exercise and daylight – and diet plays a part too. “Although there’s little evidence you can eat yourself to sleep, diet can certainly impact it negatively”, says sleep expert Professor Kevin Morgan. 

Irregular meal times can affect sleep – “What keeps our sleep in sync is regularity of habit”. Your body has an internal clock, called the circadian rhythm, which is specific to you and what you’re used to.  

Eating a diet low in nutrients may impact sleep – Dr Megan Rossi, The Gut Health Doctor, advise eating at least 30 different plants over a week – a mixture of nuts, pulses, grains, seeds and herbs, as well as fruit and vegetables. Eating plenty of high-fibre foods and some probiotics, and avoiding highly-processed foods, are good guidelines. 

Drinking lots of liquid before bed can affect your sleep – We are advised to drink six to eight glasses of fluids a day. It’s important to hydrate throughout the day, but it’s advisable to reduce the amount you have near bedtime if you often wake up in the night needing a wee. 

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