Bedtime Snacks

Hopefully my last couple of articles on sleep gave you some ideas how to increase your sleep quality. Like I said before, it’s the quality and quantity of sleep that will create optimum health.

Almost 70 percent of Americans have problems sleeping, but it’s so important to get a good nights rest and wake up refreshed.

Now I firmly believe that if we have any symptoms, illnesses or diseases that we should not be looking for ways to heal just one thing. When you heal your body, everything will heal. What do I mean by that? I’m saying that if you have problems sleeping then don’t just look at that one symptom, you need to heal the cause of the problem.

Let’s look at what we can do to improve our health with good quality sleep that will give our body the chance to heal itself.

Do you ever wake up and eat something in the night? Or are you scared to eat before bed because you think this causes weight gain?

It’s really a myth that eating before bed is unhealthy. But of course it’s important what type of food you choose. It’s best to avoid tea, coffee, chocolate, alcohol and nicotine. Avoid too much protein too, as this is hard to digest. Your digestion slows down when you sleep, so you need to be careful not to eat any heavy meal too close to bed time. The best choice is an easy to digest snack with a small portion of complete carbohydrates.

So why do you sometimes get hungry in the night?

This is because of two metabolic hormones: leptin and ghrelin. When we eat, leptin signals our brain that we are full while ghrelin stimulates hunger. Researchers have founds that if we have enough leptin to suppress the ghrelin then we will sleep through the night without waking to eat.

So your bed time snacks are also affecting your hormonal balance. And a lack of sleep increases ghrelin (the hunger hormone) which makes you feel hungry, even if you don’t really need any food. That’s why the lack of sleep is one of the big reasons for gaining weight.

Here are a few bedtime snack ideas:

1 teaspoon peanut butter with brown rice cakes

1/2 cup cottage cheese with blueberries

pumpkin seeds and unsweetened almond milk

1/3 cup of cooked oats

a small piece of cheese and some peanuts

You may also like to try lavender oil — you can put just a couple drops on your pillow, this will help you relax more as you fall asleep.

Don’t forget everything comes from one place, our body. When you heal yourself everything will come together!

•••

Ayda Ersoy is a nutrition and fitness director at The Diet Doc Hawaii. She can be reached at DietDocHawaii.com, Ayda@DietDocHawaii.com and (808) 276-6892.