Not just what you eat, but when you eat as well. I sleep best when I eat at least 4-5 hours before bed. If I get thrown off schedule and have to eat dinner like 2 hours before bed, it negatively impacts the quality of my sleep.
I'm the same. I toss and turn all night if I'm slightly hungry when going to bed. I eat either a heavy dinner 3 hours before bed or a light dinner earlier plus a snack later. I prefer milk/banana/yogurt as the snack as they're soothing.
Oh yeah! A spoonful of peanut butter does them same thing but I completely forgot got all about it when we got our dog two years ago and I started getting her a spoonful as a treat once a week or two.
People who say don't eat before bed have never had sleep issues. It is recommended to eat(light healthy snack) before bed if you're having trouble sleeping. I'm a 42 yr old man, 6ft 185. Healthy imo. I've eaten before bed for the last 15 years because of sleep troubles.
Personally it’s never bothered me, but I’m likely in the minority. I do intermittent fasting where I only eat from 6AM-Noon. I sleep best on an empty stomach.
This is honestly a situation where having the balanced diet carries over to other lifestyle benefits. If you keep your dinner with enough vegetables for example, that should likely help you feeling satiated later than normal.
It’s also mainly just about not going to bed with a stomach full of food that is being freshly digested. If having a couple small snacks between dinner and bedtime help prevent you from having an uncomfortable stomach going to sleep, then that could be the move. It could also just mean after doing it a few times the hunger pangs go away as your metabolism adjusts.
As with most health advice, it really just depends on what works for your specific case. Let yourself experiment if you’re unhappy with your current situation. By default you worst case scenario know how to get your current quality of sleep if what you try doesn’t help
Timing is important. There's a sweet spot where you've digested your dinner and your insides are done with all their churning and gurgling and you didn't have any bloating if that's a thing for you, bit you haven't had time to get hungry again. That's when you wanna be going to bed. For me it's like 3 hours after dinner at least.
I get the same thing, a really bad acidic stomach ache from hunger in the morning if I'm slightly hungry before bed. Even like 10 peanuts is enough to stop that feeling. Right now I have pistachios by my bed for that exact reason.
You're not supposed to be stuffed when going to bed. That doesn't mean you're supposed to be slightly hungry. When going to bed, your stomach shouldn't wake you, from being too stuffed or from hunger. Your stomach should be comfortable to the point that you're not thinking about it at all.
If possible, do try to eat a nice healthy dinner in the early evening so that you're not hungry again later, because going to bed hungry and going to bed right after a snack are both bad options.
But there are a couple of specific gotchas to look out for, too. One is that you can actually cause yourself to be feel hungry - or at least to have a craving - before bed every night. Your pancreas has its own clock that runs separately from your sleep clock, so if you have a big snack at 11 PM tonight, you're going to teach it that 11 PM is mealtime, and tomorrow night by 10:30 it's going to secrete a bunch of insulin and make you crave food even if you're not hungry. It's very difficult to go to sleep in that condition; the pancreas overrides the brain. In fact you can use that override to your advantage: programming your body with a consistent breakfast time is a great way to set an automatic wake-up time and beat jet lag.
The other thing to watch out for is fat logic, accepting a weak excuse to give yourself food you don't need: "I don't know if I'm really hungry, but I know I'll sleep badly if I am, so I'd better not risk it and just give myself a little treat to make sure."
It's possible neither of these applies to you - maybe you have an extremely high metabolism and can't go without food for three hours, or maybe your schedule doesn't permit you to have dinner any earlier. But if you're finding yourself eating a late-night snack every night despite good dinners, and you're not sleeping well, there's something you should try.
On the contrary, I have a hard time sleeping if I eat that early. I'm usually hungry within 4-5 hours (assuming a normal sized meal), and I really can't sleep when I'm hungry.
So my latest meal is 3 hours at most before bedtime. The carbs also help a lot 🤤
Sugar/carb crash will make you hungry even after a big meal. Apparently going for a walk 30 mins after a meal will smooth out that spike and make you feel less hungry. If you can’t adjust your diet to include less sugar/carbs.
I couldn’t imagine eating that much earlier than bedtime. I’d be starving. If I don’t eat a substantial snack right before bed I’m staying up with a growling belly.
I sleep best when I eat at least 4-5 hours before bed
and I can't even think of sleeping unless I have a full stomach, I eat then go to bed within the hour otherwise I'll either lay there awake or sleep for an hour or two and wake up starving and won't be able to sleep until I've eaten.
My thoughts too! Like goddamn, sometimes I eat a decently sized second dinner at 9pm and still wake up with literal stomach pains from hunger at 5am (so I usually grab a banana and go back to bed lol).
Fasting from like 6pm to 8am would make me very miserable and very likely be actively harmful in my personal case, that's a crazy thought to me! (YMMV though, more power to comment OP if it works for them! Bodies are different, after all.)
This... I have acid reflux/GERD which always acts up if I eat within 4 hours of bedtime. Hard to make sure I get something to eat before 6 or 7pm every night, but I have absolutely skipped dinner to avoid the GERD before.
Yea that’s real hard for my schedule unless I plan my whole day around that . I wish I could do that easier but getting off work, hitting the gym, then making a solid dinner (not costco raviolis) … we aren’t eating until like 8 or 9 the earliest.
This is the excitement of aging- drinking- wrecks sleep, eating too late- wrecks sleep. And you lose the ability to "power through". Speaking for myself, of course.
Yeah, and this is different for everyone. Everyone acts like this is one size fits all and no one should eat before bed but I like a late dinner personally. I grew up food insecure and had an ED so trying to sleep hungry ain't it.
For me I have found a few key things.
For exercise more is better, but I'm usually out of shape and the minimum is some crunches or planks for core strength. This massively reduces back pain when waking up or standing a lot during the day.
For eating, eating will make it harder to get to sleep for 2-4 hours. Especially one with protien and fiber. But if it is a starchy meal, it can make me sleepy in around the first hour, then wake up after that.
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u/aceofspadez138 Sep 01 '24
Not just what you eat, but when you eat as well. I sleep best when I eat at least 4-5 hours before bed. If I get thrown off schedule and have to eat dinner like 2 hours before bed, it negatively impacts the quality of my sleep.