Sleep Forum

[Emilie]

It's now time to focus on your diet and how it affects your sleep!

The challenge this week is to stay away from heavy meals and alcohol two hours before bed. A sweet late night snack may be enjoyable but it’s not really great for your sleep. You’ll find more tips on what to eat and what to avoid in our blog. Let us know how you improved your diet this week and share your experience, and tips, with others below.

What’s your sleep inducing snack of choice? Share your experience! What steps have you been taking to avoid snacking before sleep?

Don’t forget to share your experiences below for your chance to win one of 5 x A.H. Beard Sleep Dot, Mini Sleep Trackers.

[sleepylouise]

I get home late and so often have a big dinner late which is definitely not ideal! I'm going to work on tweaking my schedule to eat earlier and just have a bit of toast or fruit as a pre bed snack instead

[Ackas]

I have learnt not to have a large meal before bedtime as I used to suffer from major reflux.

I try to make lunch my main meal of the day and if still hungry towards bedtime I eat something which is protein based such as chicken, red meat or maybe a handful of nuts.

A hot chocolate seems to go down well but only one.

There is an old saying, "You are what you eat" and I'm trying not be be overweight but the older you get the harder it is to lose weight.

I try going on the protein diet every 3 months. It is a hard diet but as long as you persevere and try to get a fair bit of exercise whilst on it then it will work.

I'm lucky to have work friends that help me to try and keep my weight down. I'm 5' 7" and I weight 85kilos and I know I still need to lose 10+ kilos to stay healthy so I'm on the journey.

I must say, I like these challenges and thanks to A. H Beard for encouraging everyone to live better and sleep better.
I hope everyone else is getting better sleep.

[DrCarmel]

I get home late and so often have a big dinner late which is definitely not ideal! I'm going to work on tweaking my schedule to eat earlier and just have a bit of toast or fruit as a pre bed snack instead

In recent years, often because of long work hours and commuting times, many of us end up having our largest meal of the day too close to bedtime. It takes about 3 hours for a large meal to be fully digested and if we try to go to sleep within that time we may either have trouble getting to sleep or maintaining sleep as it is difficult to get into our deep consolidated sleep while the body is busy digesting. So my advice in these circumstances is to have your large meal at lunchtime and a much smaller and lighter meal at night - fish or chicken with a salad is ideal.
This not only works well for sleep but is also good for our waistlines. Keep up the good work, Dr Carmel

[DrCarmel]

I have learnt not to have a large meal before bedtime as I used to suffer from major reflux.

I try to make lunch my main meal of the day and if still hungry towards bedtime I eat something which is protein based such as chicken, red meat or maybe a handful of nuts.

A hot chocolate seems to go down well but only one.

There is an old saying, "You are what you eat" and I'm trying not be be overweight but the older you get the harder it is to lose weight.

I try going on the protein diet every 3 months. It is a hard diet but as long as you persevere and try to get a fair bit of exercise whilst on it then it will work.

I'm lucky to have work friends that help me to try and keep my weight down. I'm 5' 7" and I weight 85kilos and I know I still need to lose 10+ kilos to stay healthy so I'm on the journey.

I must say, I like these challenges and thanks to A. H Beard for encouraging everyone to live better and sleep better.
I hope everyone else is getting better sleep.

Congratulations - sounds like you have got this challenge under control - your eating pattern is very conducive to good sleep! Exercise also helps significantly with sleep but make sure you don't exercise within 3 hours of your planned sleep time as this, like a large meal, will make sleep difficult. Sweet dreams Dr Carmel.

[Sleepymonkey]

I do tend I eat a bit late, but in trying to make sure I stop 2-3 hours before sleep I've noticed I feel more refreshed in he morning, and more hungry for breakfast, too, so that's an improvement. I only need to get up for the loo if I wake up for some reason, so I count myself lucky in that regard. I find a banana and milk is a good post-dinnerr snack that helps me to wind down.