Sleep: What is the food connection?

Getting adequate sleep is one of the best health promoting strategies for individuals with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Not having enough sleep is a general health risk.

Sleep is a complex mind and body process. One key aspect that drives the chemistry of the body is nutrition.

In regard to food and sleep we need to consider among other things

• The timing of meals
• The nutrient value of food ingested.

Some facts

A large meal at night stimulates many physiological processes and does not lead to relaxation.

Food is required for nutrition and energy and therefore eating a big meal before going to bed, a time when the energy requirements of the body are low may well contribute to weight gain.

The time to eat food for maximum nutritional and energy usage is before the energy requirements are required. That is earlier in the day.

On the other hand it is important not to go to sleep hungry as the brain and does require enough energy good quality of sleep.

Getting this balance is not difficult in theory. Simply aim to eat a small nutritious meal at night and observe the effects.

However the challenge for most of us is to achieve the ideal of have our main meal ealier in the day and a smaller meal at night.