If you’re suffering from insomnia, the trigger could in fact be something you ate. From the notorious after-dinner coffee to some less obvious choices, here are the most likely foods that could be preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep.
Related: What’s in Season? Your Guide to Canadian Fruits and Vegetables
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Raw Veggies
High-fibre raw veggies such as celery, cauliflower and carrots may be a healthy snack choice, but beware: they also take a long time to digest, and maybe the reason you’re having trouble sleeping.
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Dark Chocolate
While it’s been well established that dark chocolate is loaded with health benefits, helping to achieve a good night’s sleep is not among them. Along with caffeine, dark chocolate also contains theobromine, which causes the heart rate to increase and contributes to sleepless nights.
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Cheese
Aged or fermented cheeses are high in tyramine, an amino acid that tricks your body into feeling wide awake when it actually isn’t.
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Coffee
This is a bit of a no-brainer, yet the time-honoured tradition of having a cup of coffee after dinner may be responsible for giving you a sleepless night later on. But have you ever wondered why caffeine keeps us awake?
Caffeine molecules are similar to a naturally occurring chemical in our bodies called adenosine, which builds up throughout the day and eventually makes us feel tired. Caffeine molecules bind to adenosine receptors in the brain, which prevents adenosine from building up, thus keeping us wide awake. The solution, however, may not be to simply switch to decaf; decaffeinated coffee still has enough caffeine in it to play havoc with sleep patterns.
Related: Sleepy Time Mocktail
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Ice Cream
Loaded with sugar (which jacks you up when you should be winding down) and fat (which takes a long time to digest and keeps the body from resting), ice cream is one of the worst foods you can choose for a midnight snack.
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Tomatoes
Like aged cheese, tomatoes are rich in tyramine, which triggers your brain to release a chemical called norepinephrine. This in turn boosts brain activity and hinders sleep.
Water
Drinking water is a healthy choice on many levels, but drinking lots of water (or any fluid, for that matter) right before bedtime isn’t a great idea if you want to get a good night’s sleep. The reason is common sense: feeling the urge to go to the bathroom will wake you up, preventing a restful night.
Spicy Foods
Spicy foods such as chili can have a negative affect on sleep, with chili containing lots of fat (which disrupts sleep) while research is ongoing as to the role that capsaicin (the active ingredient in chilli peppers that makes them spicy) can play on sleep by causing changes in body temperature.
Alcohol
Studies on the effect of alcohol on sleep date back to the 1930’s, and the bottom line is that booze may make you feel sleepy, but will ultimately lead to sleep disruptions. “Alcohol may seem to be helping you to sleep, as it helps induce sleep, but overall it is more disruptive to sleep, particularly in the second half of the night,” says researcher Irshaad Ebrahim of the London Sleep Centre. “Alcohol also suppresses breathing and can precipitate sleep apnea,” pauses in breathing that take place during sleep.
Fried Food
French fries, onion rings, pizza and similar high-fat junk foods are a no-no before bedtime. Fried, fatty food essentially sends your digestive system into overdrive, which proves disruptive to getting shut-eye.
Red Meat
In the same way that eating fatty foods before bed will hamper sleep by taxing your digestive system, red meat will keep your digestion working at full capacity while the rest of your body is trying to rest.
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Sugary Cereal
While the carbohydrate-laden grains in a bowl of healthy whole-grain cereal or oatmeal can help ensure a good night’s rest, a bowl of sugary cereal can have the exact opposite effect by sending your blood sugar sky rocketing.
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Energy Drinks
Another no-brainer, drinking an energy drink before heading to bed is a recipe for sleep disaster. Even drinking one of these sugar-filled beverages up to six hours before bed has been proven to mess with sleeping patterns.
Chocolate Cake
Possibly one of the worst things you can eat before bedtime, the combination of caffeine-laden chocolate, sleep-disrupting fat and sweetness that will send your blood sugar way up is a bad choice before bed.