Can my diet affect my sleep?

Your diet can indeed affect your sleep; what you eat at night can help you fall asleep by increasing the levels of serotonin in your brain. Watch sleep specialist Michael Breus, PhD, explain the foods to embrace and those to avoid for healthy sleep.

Transcript

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Some of the foods that are great that you can eat before sleep, that can help you with sleep are foods that are rich in omega 3s. So we're looking at salmon, tuna, walnuts.

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Things that have got all of those great high fatty acids in them can really help with sleep overall.

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Many people don't realize this, but your diet absolutely can affect your sleep. There's now studies to show that a small increase

00:28

in carbohydrates in the later part of the evening can help you fall asleep. And we think that the reasoning behind this is that carbohydrates increase the level of serotonin

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in your brain. And remember, serotonin is the calming hormone. It helps sort of relax you and start to get you to sleep.

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So a lot of people will make sure that they have a small starch with their meal that can help them sleep. Some of the foods that are great that you can eat before sleep,

00:50

that can help you with sleep are foods that are rich in omega 3s. So we're looking at salmon, tuna, walnuts.

00:58

Things that have got all of those great high fatty acids in them can really help with sleep overall. There's been a lot of data to show that if you're low in DHA,

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it can actually affect your sleep negatively. Things to avoid-- be careful with caffeine. Most people don't realize this, but caffeine has a half life

01:13

of between 8 and 10 hours. So while many people say oh, I can have that latte or that cup of coffee with dinner

01:20

and I still fall asleep, you might still fall asleep but you don't get into deep sleep. Remember, it's not just about the minutes of sleep,