foods to avoid before bed

10 Foods You Should Avoid If You Want to Get Better Sleep

4 mins read

How fast you able to sleep depends on many things. One of them is what you eat before you go to sleep. There are some foods that you should avoid to eat before bed if you want to go to sleep quickly.

Check out 10 foods that you should avoid to eat before bed if you don’t want to experience insomnia or have trouble sleeping.

1. Ice Cream

A dinner will be perfect when closed with a dessert. One of the most popular dessert foods is ice cream. Ice cream has interesting, sweet color, and can be easily combined with other foods. Behind the delicious taste, ice cream can actually make it difficult for you to sleep.

Sugar has an effect that can keep the body awake. This is because ice cream and foods processed from milk, have a high fat and sugar content. Sugar alone can make it difficult for you to sleep, this is added with fat. Although it is a bit difficult, you should think again to avoid these foods before bed if you want to sleep fast and are on a diet.

Read Also: 10 Foods That Make You Sleep Better at Night

2. Pasta

Carbohydrates are indeed an important nutrient because they can provide energy. There are also many foods that contain carbohydrates. Apart from rice, carbohydrates can also be obtained from pasta. Obviously pasta is more attractive because there are so many types of pasta itself. So there can be many variations that you can try.

For lunch, pasta is fine. But for dinner, pasta is not recommended. Pasta contains carbohydrates as well as sugar which can make it difficult for the body to sleep. Plus pasta can be stored as fat if you consume it at night. If you want to consume pasta, you can look for pasta made from complex carbohydrates such as wheat.

Read Also: Sleep Hacks – 10 Tricks to Fall Asleep Easier When You Can’t Sleep

3. Foods That High in Fat

Fatty foods are very tasty. Fatty foods are not only from foods that are processed by frying but also from fast food. Even fast food is mostly cooked by frying it.

French fries, pizza, hamburgers, and red meat have a fairly high fat content. If you want to rest and get good quality sleep, you should avoid these fatty foods before bed.

4. Diuretic Foods

Diuretic is a substance that can encourage the body to remove water from the system. Consuming diuretic foods can make a person go back and forth to the toilet to urinate. Obviously this will be very annoying when you feel comfortable in bed but you have to go to the toilet to relieve yourself.

Foods that are included in diuretic foods such as celery, carrots, cucumbers, ginger, watermelon, and alcohol. So maybe from now on you can avoid diuretic foods at night if you don’t want to be bothered by urinating. Maybe not before sleeping, it could also be that when you fall asleep you are forced to wake up because you have to pee.

5. Spicy Food

It is well known that spicy food is the main problem for someone to have trouble sleeping. This is because spicy food can make your body temperature to rise. In fact, human body must lower its temperature in order to be able to get a good rest. Not to mention the stomach problems caused by spicy food.

6. Tomato Sauce

Tomato sauce is very high in acid. This high acidity level can keep the body awake at night. It takes a long time for the body to relax when eating dinner using tomato sauce. At least it takes at least 3 hours for the body from eating food plus tomato sauce to sleep.

7. Soft Drinks

If alcohol turns out to be bad for consumption at night, that doesn’t mean you are looking for justification by drinking soda alone. Soft drinks with alcohol have a bad effect on sleep quality. Therefore, it is not recommended to drink soft drinks at night.

If you want to be labeled zero sugar, soda still contains sugar. This sugar can keep a person awake at night. Forcing sleep after drinking sugary drinks can have an impact on weight gain. And again it will be difficult to sleep if the flatulence is due to soda.

8. Red Meat

Red meat is good for consumption because it has a high protein content. Besides, protein is the main food for muscle recovery and development. Although it is good, there are negative effects given by red meat. This effect is to make sleep harder.

All red meat contains very high protein. This high protein takes more time to digest. That’s why when someone has eaten red meat, the body is still active and doesn’t want to be invited to rest. To still be able to get protein, you can switch to other foods such as eggs and tempeh or also eat an hour or two earlier before bed.

9. Caffeine

Coffee lovers must have realized that coffee is a drink that can keep the body awake all the time. Those who are forced to stay up late at night to do school or office work will also need coffee as a companion to accompany a beautiful night time.

In coffee contains a substance called caffeine. Caffeine is what keeps the body awake. Caffeine can make the heart beat faster and increase metabolism. Good as an energy booster, coffee is actually dangerous to consume at night if you are very tired and need rest.

10. Alcohol

Maybe you think that alcohol can help someone to sleep faster. The reality that happened was not like that. Alcohol may help a person fall asleep quickly, but the quality of sleep is a question.

Alcohol can indeed create a very strong sense of drowsiness. Which person can survive when this drowsiness appears, will definitely go to sleep immediately if they find a comfortable place. However, the quality of sleep you get from alcohol is not good. Alcohol can actually interfere with REM. That’s why many people who wake up feel headaches after a night of drinking alcohol.