How food can give you a good night's sleep... or not

Back in March I wrote a post on the need for sleep.  Sleep is essential to good health, both mentally and physically.  So, if you are having problems getting to sleep at night here are a few tips on what to eat and what not to eat.

There are several foods that will promote good sleep, relax tense muscles, quieten an overactive brain and promote the sleep-inducing hormones serotonin and melatonin.

1. Honey - try a relaxing herbal tea with a drizzle of honey.  Too much sugar is stimulating, however a little glucose sends a message to your brain to turn off a recently discovered neurotransmitter called orexin which is linked to alertness.  The natural sugar in honey promotes relaxation and raises insulin slightly which allows the amino acid tryptophan (precursor to Serotonin) to enter the brain more easily.  Just a small spoonful before bed can help you get a good night's sleep.
2. Cherries - Eat fresh, dried or tart cherries about an hour before going to bed or before taking a
   
   flight that you want to sleep on.  Cherries are one of the few natural sources of melatonin.  Melatonin is a chemical that controls the body's internal clock and helps regulate sleep.  It is also currently being studied for its anti-aging properties.  If you don't like cherries then you're in luck, melatonin is now available from health shops and pharmacies in tablet form.  My advice is to start with the lowest dose you can find, take a tablet an hour before bed and then make sure your room is dark and the TV isn't on!  The reason I say to start with the lowest dose is that I have only found ONE side effect so far... two people I know who have tried it have told me that after 2-3 days of taking melatonin in tablet form they became very bad tempered!
3. Flaxseeds - My husband often accuses me of being on "spin cycle" when I have a problem that is going round and round my head and stopping me sleeping.  Flaxseeds are full of omega-3 fatty acids which is also a natural mood lifter.  Fatty acids, in general, are involved in inducing and maintaining sleep so a spoonful of flaxseed in a yogurt or mixed with a bowl of healthy cereal before bed can help you on your way to the land of nod.  Also the fibre is great for your gut!
4. Almonds - I am a total fan of raw almonds.  They are packed full of wonderful things such as Vitamin E and calcium, the good thing is they also contain tryptophan, a precursor to serotonin and a healthy amount of magnesium that relaxes muscles.  They also supply proteins that will help you to maintain a stable blood sugar level while you sleep and they switch off your alert mode and put you into a rest cycle.  Just a handful of raw almonds will be enough to help your body relax.
5. Bananas - As you probably already know, bananas are a great source of magnesium and potassium which are both natural muscle relaxants.  They also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which in turns is converted into 5-HTP in the brain, this is then converted to serotonin and melatonin - an all round winner!

Now, for the bad news.  There are also several foods out there that do the complete opposite of the above mentioned 5.  There are, of course, foods that stop you getting a good night's sleep.  I have to say, they are pretty obvious:

1. Coffee - well we all know that anything with caffeine in it is a no no just before bed.  But there are less obvious caffeine fixes other than coffee.  Tea, CocaCola, Pepsi, etc., even decaffeinated coffee still has a certain amount in it.  The best rule to follow is no caffeine after 2pm.
2. Alcohol -   Lots of people find that a glass of wine before bed or a small nightcap can help them fall asleep quicker.  However, alcohol quite often provokes a restless night's sleep, making the person wake up often during the night, which in the longterm leads to sleep deprivation. 
3. Dark chocolate -  Now, I'm a chocolate lover!  The good thing about plain 70% cocoa chocolate is that it is packed full of antioxidants - so if you need an excuse to eat chocolate there you have it.  However, it also contains caffeine and a stimulant called theobromine that can increase your heart rate and provoke sleeplessness.  So your best bet is to eat chocolate up to 5 hours before bed.
4. Spicy Foods - A study published in The International Journal of Psychophysiology by Australian researchers noted that on nights that included spicy meals, there were notable changes in the sleep patterns of the study subjects meaning that they slept less over all, taking longer to fall asleep and spending less time in both the light phase of sleep called Stage 2 and the deep slow-wave Stages 3 and 4.
5. Fatty Foods - There seems to be a strong connection between the circadian processes of sleep and metabolism relating to the processing of fatty foods such as fried foods, fatty meats and high fat dairy.  Research has shown that people who often eat high-fat foods experience a disruption of their sleep cycles.  Eating a heavy meal before bed activates digestion, which can mean you will have to get up frequently during the night to go to the bathroom.  Leave heavy meals for breakfast and lunchtime and eat a light evening meal.

Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Wear your conscience on your wrist.

Have you ever wondered how many calories you burn per day?  How much you move or how well you sleep?

If you have read any of my previous posts, and I hope you have, you will know that 3 things are essential for optimal health:

1. Exercise/ perpetual movement
2. Diet
3. Sleep

These are the 3 golden rules.  Exercise and perpetual motion are key to combating our sedentary lifestyles, diet is key to nourishing the body and sleep is essential for mental and physical well being.

There are several gadgets available to help you monitor the 3 golden rules and, as it turns out, they tend to motivate you into taking action.

This is something I have witnessed close at hand.  I gave my husband a Jawbone Up band for his birthday last month, and believe me it has worked wonders and achieved changes in him that I had failed to do until now.  I have a Nike Fuel Band that he gave me for my birthday - the Jawbone Up wasn't available back in March, so I know the benefits of wearing your conscience on your wrist, as these gadgets are just that.  Your conscience! 

You set a daily goal of "Fuel" you have to generate or steps you have to take depending on which tracker you decide to use.  And believe me, you really want to achieve that goal everyday otherwise you tend to feel that you have failed!  These gadgets really do get you moving and also make you more aware of just what you are putting into your body during each day.

One of the things Nutritionists like myself know is that if a patient writes down exactly what they eat every day they are far more conscious of how much they are eating and are much more successful in following a weight loss program and in keeping off the weight they have lost.  These new gadgets are very good at keeping people mindful of what they are doing and eating at the touch of a button.

Now my general diet is healthy but my husband was finding it difficult in his stress filled life to stick to eating healthy foods, especially if you consider he travels a lot and different cultures with different ways of eating make it much more difficult to stick to what he knows is the right way to eat.  

Jawbone Up:

I find this to be a very complete tracker.  It monitors the steps you take, the calories you burn, the

calories you ingest and your sleep patterns.  Whoever said that too much information is not a good thing?  It is also discrete and can be worn by anyone in any situation.  It also gives you advice and sends you motivational messages through an app.  You have to input your food and drink intake via the app and it calculates the calories you have consumed.  It does not have a display on the band and it doesn't sync via bluetooth - you have to plug it in to your smart phone in order to download information.  You can compare with your friends through the app and see who is the most active and who is leading the healthiest lifestyle.  The sleep monitor tells you how long it took you to go to sleep and how deeply you slept during the sleep cycles.  The information is then presented in the app and it gives you advice on things you can change to improve.  You can also connect other gadgets such as the Withings scales to monitor your weight through the Jawbone app.

Nike Fuel Band:

Slightly less discrete visually and has less options.  It monitors the steps you take and how many calories your burn and how much "fuel" you produce through your activity.  This "fuel" is not useful for anything it is just a way of gauging how active you are.  It doesn't monitor your sleep patterns and there is no place on the app to input your food intake.  It does have a display on the band so you don't need to sync it to the app to see how you are doing during the day.  The app shows when you were most active during each day and how many days you have been active, plus the calories burned and the number of steps you have taken each day.  Of the two this is the simplest device and I sync it once a day via bluetooth which is very convenient.  You set a daily goal of how much "fuel" you want to achieve with a minimum of 2000 and once you reach your goal you can see just how far past that goal you can go.  The app also gives you motivational messages when you sync and you can compete with your friends to see just who is the most active.

I put these two first as they are the ones we have used and tested at home.  However, there are many more gadgets out there that do the same or similar:

The Fitbit Flex is another band, I did buy this one for my husband but ended up taking it back the next day, it was very chunky and a bit uncomfortable.  It also monitors steps taken, distance travelled, calories burned and via the app you can input food and drink intake and monitor sleep patterns.

One to watch out for is the Withings Smart Activity Tracker, this is a tiny clip on monitor that you wear.  Withings, as far as I am concerned, is a great company producing many handy health gadgets such as the scales that connect via WIFI to your computer or the blood pressure monitor you can plug into your smart phone.  The Smart Activity Tracker measures sleep quality, food intake, movement and pulse rate with a touch sensitive front and a heart rate sensor in the back.  It connects via bluetooth to the Withings Health Mate app.

The Fitbit One, is another cool gadget doing much the same: tracks steps/ movement, distance travelled, calories burned and sleep patterns.  One thing this one has that the others don't is that it has a built in altimeter which allows you to factor in stairs and hill-climbs for better accuracy in the calories burned area.  This also syncs via bluetooth to your computer or smartphone.  This is not a band, this you can keep in your pocket or clip on to your belt, so no need to wear it on your wrist if you don't like that kind of thing.

However, what all these have in common is that they literally are the voice of your conscience.  They really do get you moving and monitoring your food and drink intake.  People have found that they have lost weight and generally tend to move a lot more just by wearing one of these - let's face it, you certainly don't want your app telling you that you didn't reach your daily goal!  That would be really annoying!

Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com