One of the best ways is to stick to a consistent sleep and wake-up time, and to make sure you fully relax before bed with a proper bedtime routine.Īlso ensure you are sleeping on the best mattress for your body type and sleep needs, as an uncomfortable bed can lead to broken sleep as you'll keep waking up to find a comfy new sleeping position. Now that you have a better idea of how alcohol, sugar and caffeine affect your sleep, it's time to look at some other quick ways to boost your sleep at night. There are two phases of sleep: SWS (slow wave sleep) and REM (rapid eye movement sleep). Alcohol helps you to rapidly enter SWS but disrupts REM sleep, so you fall asleep faster but have less restful and more disrupted sleep. AlcoholĪs we learned in our feature on alcohol and sleep, booze disrupts sleep for everyone, and drinking more alcohol on a regular basis does not reduce its effects - this is a classic sleep myth. Alcohol disrupts the Glutamate to Gaba (inhibitory and excitatory chemicals in the brain) balance in the brain. A glass of hot or cold unsweetened soya or nut milk (no sugar here and the high protein aids sleep) is also a great sleep aid. Caffeine-free herbal teas, especially those containing chamomile, valerian root, liquorice root, rooibos and ginger are also great before bed. Ideally you should have a glass of water with every meal. Hot water is soothing, and a mug of hot water helps reduce stress and boosts your mood, so its a win-win. Show that drinking more water makes you feel calmer, improves cognitive performance and improves your mood. This includes energy bars with dark chocolate coating, dark chocolate brownies, as well as cakes and dark drinking chocolate. If you have four squares, you have had the equivalent of a cup of coffee and it has the same five-hour window within which to be metabolised. The darker the chocolate the more the caffeine content, with one dark chocolate square containing 24mg - that's 1/4 of caffeine in the average 200ml mug of coffee. Dark ChocolateĬacao gives us energy due to its sugar content but also because it contains caffeine. (Image credit: Getty/Emilija Manevska) 4. Sweeteners can be up to 1000x sweeter than sugar and give us the same energy crashes that make us stressed and hangry, and they also impact sleep. In 'low fat' foods, the fat is often replaced with either high carbohydrates or sweeteners. Therefore, complex sugars such as dietary fibre and protein-rich foods, which take longer to break down and therefore give us a more sustained energy source, are the best for helping us to sleep. However, too few dietary carbohydrates and our body pumps us with adrenaline energy to make us get up and get food. Too many carbohydrates can derail a restful night’s sleep. Additionally, the sugar low, energy crash, post-sugar high increases the likelihood that you'll reach for more caffeine, further impacting sleep. Our brains respond to this sugar low with adrenaline, which impacts sleep. Their high sugar content causes sugar lows, which make our bodies crave energy giving, high-carbohydrate foods, increasing our appetite. Sports drinksĮveryone knows that energy drinks give you, well, energy, but what you may not know is that high-sugar, caffeinated sports drinks can also impact sleep.
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