What food should we eat to get good sleep?

Good sleep is like a medicine and many of us are deprived of it. Good sleep gives full rest to body and mind, and keeps both relaxed. A man spends 1/3^rd of his total time in sleep. Yet sleep is not a loss, but a gain. A good sleep at night promises you an energetic full day time for the next day. But nowadays loss of sleep is quite common. Due to job pressures, family or financial problems or health reasons, many people are deprived of sleep. Many of them find solace in sleeping pills, which can harm you more in future rather than giving benefits. Wrong food habits and life style can also keep you away from good sleep and dreams.

So through this column let me give you a few simple tips that can help you a lot.

Have supper a little bit early

If you a heavy supper in the late night and go to bed very soon, sleep won’t approach you. Discomfort of stomach is the reason. Have your dinner at least 2-3 hours before you go to bed. Also have a small walk in your courtyard or garden to stimulate your digestion process a little bit more.

Avoid high fat, chilly and spicy food for supper. They can give you gastric problems. They loosen the muscles of esophagus, and hence combining with acids of intestine, the food regurgitates back giving you discomforts. Also called Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), it gives you burning chest pain and taste of acid in the back of the mouth disrupting good sleep.

Stay away from coffee and tea before you go to sleep

Drinks contain caffeine should be avoid 6-8 hours prior to sleep. Coffee, tea, cola and chocolate are some of the common caffeine containing food items. Caffeine is contained in coffee in high amounts. 1 cup of coffee contains 75 milligram caffeine, while it’s around 50 milligrams in one cup of tea. Caffeine stimulates brain and keeps it awake and refreshed for long time.

Eat fruits, sleep well

Apple, grapes and banana can offer you good sleep. Food items made using curd and sweets with jaggery added are next alternatives. Grains without removing bran and roti made using whole wheat grain give good sleep. Yet sweets which get easily absorbed to blood, bakery items etc contain less amount of serotonin, thus disrupting and reducing sleep hours.

Milk is the best sleeping agent

If you have half glass of warm milk, you will get good and deep sleep. How milk helps you to get good sleep? Milk contains an amino acid called tryptophan and it’s also abundant in calcium. Calcium present in milk helps the production of sleep hormone melatonin from tryptophan in brain and that’s why you feel sleepy. Eggs, chicken and pluses also contain tryptophan. When they are taken along with carbohydrate contained food, they can provide you good sleep.

Never sleep for long hours after lunch

A nap of 10-20 minutes in the afternoon can give you refreshment. It helps you to get rid of tiredness as well. The time between 2 pm and 3 pm is ideal for such a short ‘break’. But if you sleep for long hours, it gives you tiredness, lack of energy and you won’t get enough sleep at night. So always take care never to slip from nap to deep sleep during daytime.  

Image source: Pixabay

Also read a few more topics on sleeping disorders and methods to get sound sleep. Click on the images in the gallery to read