A Healthy Diet May Be Linked to Better Sleep

More than half of U.S. adults report that they often or always have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, according to a survey conducted in March 2023 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. If you’re one of them, you’ve likely tried everything from supplements to fancy pillows to stop the tossing and turning.

But there’s a valuable tool you may have overlooked: your diet. Of course, what you eat and drink in the lead-up to bedtime — a spicy meal or a nightcap — can certainly mess with your z’s. Did you know the food choices you make day in and day out make a difference too? A growing body of research is revealing that what you eat may have a powerful influence on the quality of your shut-eye.

“We should look at diet as a way of improving sleep in those who have sleep difficulties,” says Marie-Pierre St-Onge, an associate professor of nutritional medicine and the director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep & Circadian Research at Columbia University. St-Onge and colleagues examined the cyclical relationship between sleep and diet in a review of research published in the Annual Review of Nutrition in 2021. “Of interest are foods that can improve nightly sleep outcomes, such as longer sleep duration, greater sleep efficiency (percent of time in bed spent asleep), shorter sleep onset latency (time it takes to fall asleep), and fewer awakenings at night, as well as self-reports of better general sleep quality,” they wrote in the report.

Among their findings and evidence-based recommendations:

• Increase intake “of fruits, vegetables, legumes and other low-calorie-density foods, including fish and other lean animal protein sources,” the researchers wrote. They note that the Mediterranean diet has shown the most consistent sleep benefits in studies, but that any diet based on this approach would likely be effective.
• Fruits and vegetables can help improve sleep quality in several ways. They can help fight inflammation, for example. They also contain fiber that supports healthy gut bacteria. Both inflammation and the gut microbiome have an influence on sleep, although more research is needed to better understand the mechanisms.
• Foods that contain melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle, “could have a more direct influence on sleep quality,” the researchers note. The same goes for foods rich in the amino acid tryptophan, which the body converts to melatonin. Good sources of melatonin include tomatoes, strawberries, almonds and walnuts; foods rich in tryptophan include chicken breast, pumpkin seeds and cheddar cheese.

In addition, there are some foods you may want to avoid. According to a systematic review of 29 studies involving children and adults, published in Sleep Medicine Reviews in 2021, there’s evidence that processed fast food and sugar-sweetened beverages could have a negative effect on sleep quality.