While we all love to keep busy and active with our favorite activities to help create healthy fulfilling lives, sleep and rest are equally important to a thriving lifestyle. In this blog, Sweet Life Wellness welcomes you to join as DC Metro Area Dietician Kay Loughrey explains how sleep and diet can impact your overall healthy lifestyle!
As we begin our exploration of sleep, let’s start with the “why”. Sleep is essential for many reasons, including positive mental-emotional functioning, hormone balance, proper digestion, immunity strength, and even brain health. Sleep deprivation even on a small scale can bring several negative side effects including:
- Difficulty with emotion management
- Relational difficulty
- Anxiety
- Increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes.
Now we will turn our attention to how sleep impacts our eating habits and digestion. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can increase the amount of food you are eating, meaning if you are not getting adequate sleep, you will most likely be consuming additional food that your body does not really need to live a thriving healthy life. Sleep also controls the regulation of your “hunger hormone”, which will signal your body to let you know when you are full enough. If this hormone is not regulated properly, you might continue to eat believing you are still hungry even if your body has been satisfied! Additionally, sleep also impacts how your body will digest food as well as how well nutrients are absorbed.
Just as sleep can impact our eating habits, what we eat can also affect our sleep. Studies have shown that eating a diet of mostly heavily processed foods leads to a lower quality of sleep. Processed foods can also cause you to sleep for shorter periods of time, cutting into your healthy sleep goal of seven to eight hours. Caffeine and sugar can also impact sleep levels, so it’s best to avoid those later in the day and better for your overall health to limit them altogether. Meal timing can also play a role in sleep quality, as eating too close to bedtime or not eating frequently enough can cause the body to experience discomfort and lower sleep quality.
For all the positive benefits that come from a full night of sleep to be applicable, it is suggested that adults have seven to eight hours of sleep per day. Having a plan for when you will go to bed, when you will get up and what your evening and morning routines will look like can be try helpful for reaching your sleep goal. If possible, try to keep your routine the same! You can find tips to build a better sleep routine here. If you are struggling with getting quality sleep, here are a few tips to help you have a better night of rest:
- Sleep in a cool room
- Avoid caffeine later in the day
- Relax before bed and avoid electronics
- Exercise regularly and get daily sunlight when possible
- Eat balanced meals at balanced times throughout the day
Quality sleep can be a struggle to keep on track, but it is so important to a healthy thriving lifestyle! Through what Sweet Life Wellness has shared today, you now have a few extra ideas to make finding a sleep pattern that is best for you a smooth landing. Remember to build a consistent sleep plan and pattern, focus on getting quality sleep, and make food choices that will help promote healthy sleep quality!
Resources
Justyna Godos, Giuseppe Grosso, Sabrina Castellano, Fabio Galvano, Filippo Caraci, Raffaele Ferri, Association between diet and sleep quality: A systematic review, Sleep Medicine Reviews, Volume 57, 2021, 101430, ISSN 1087-0792 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101430.
Binks H, E. Vincent G, Gupta C, Irwin C, Khalesi S. Effects of Diet on Sleep: A Narrative Review. Nutrients. 2020; 12(4):936. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12040936.
Caterina Lombardo, Andrea Ballesio, Giordana Gasparrini & Silvia Cerolini (2020) Effects of acute and chronic sleep deprivation on eating behaviour, Clinical Psychologist, 24:1, 64-72, DOI: 10.1111/cp.12189.
Felipe Mendes Delpino, Lílian Munhoz Figueiredo, Thaynã Ramos Flores, Erika Aparecida Silveira, Francine Silva dos Santos, André Oliveira Werneck, Maria Laura da Costa Louzada, Ricardo Alexandre Arcêncio, Bruno Pereira Nunes. Intake of ultra-processed foods and sleep-related outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Nutrition, Volume 106, 2023, 111908, ISSN 08999007, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2022.111908.
National Library of Medicine. Healthy Sleep. MedlinePlus. https://medlineplus.gov/healthysleep.html. Updated April 26, 2017. Accessed August 8, 2023.
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Kay Loughrey, MPH, RDN, LDN
Transformational Speaker, Breakthrough Coach, Nutritionist-Dietitian
Karis N. Hicks
North Carolina Central University
M.S. – Nutrition Studies
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