Feeding your Neurotransmitters for Quality Sleep
Our sleep can be one of the first things to suffer during stressful times, which can throw off the balance of many biochemical functions in our bodies. Everything from rational thinking too good decision-making, to proper digestion, to high performance heavily depends on getting good quality sleep.
Sleep quality is essential for dancers and athletes and, yes, all humans.
1. Muscles get a chance to repair and recover when you’re sleeping fully
2. Restoration of your adrenal glands (we can address more on adrenal health in future segments – let me know if you have specific questions)
3. The detoxification of your body by your liver and the…
4. The rebuilding of your immune system
Have you ever had a bad night’s sleep, only to find yourself craving fatty or sugary foods the next day? Or felt like you needed a nap after a big meal? A bad night’s sleep could cause you to eat more the next day, and the food you eat could affect your sleep quality.
After reading the research, lousy quality sleep and food intake are closely linked to influencing each other.
A few reasons that can explain this are:
Leptin and ghrelin, which are the two essential opposing hormones in regulating your appetite, are affected.
Emotional stress is more significant.
More food is needed to compensate for your lack of energy.
Your impulsivity is increased.
This particular hormone imbalance can lead to a diet full of the wrong foods and may throw off your regular meal times. This can then harm your sleep the next night and create a vicious cycle of poor sleep quality leading to health conditions.
There is plenty of information for bedtime recommendations and rituals, such as turning off blue light from computers, reducing bedroom temperature using essential oils, or practicing meditation.
Can we use a particular biochemical quirk to feed our neurotransmitters with foods to stop the vicious circle of poor sleep and poor food choices?
Feeding your Neurotransmitters
You can think of your neurotransmitters as biochemical messengers that carry signals from one brain cell to another. The better you feed these messengers, the more efficiently they deliver the goods. Some neurotransmitters are neurons that perk up the brain we can call them alert foods. Other types of neurotransmitters have a calming or sedative effect. We can call them to snooze food.
Snooze foods are protein foods that contain the amino acid tryptophan, which tends to sedate the brain, and protein foods containing the amino acid tyrosine wake up the brain, the alert foods.
You can take advantage of this biochemical quirk by choosing proper ratios of protein to carbohydrate-rich meals depending on whether you want to perk up or slow down your brain.
For dinner and bed-time snacks, eat a meal high in complex carbs with a small amount of protein that contains enough tryptophan to relax the brain. This ratio of carbs to protein will have a calming effect. Rich dietary sources of tryptophan are eggs, good quality dairies like kefir, sunflower seeds, and poultry, to name a few items. Eating a lot of carbohydrates along with tryptophan-containing foods increases their soothing effect. The carbohydrates trigger insulin release, sending amino acids that compete with tryptophan into the muscle tissue. This allows more tryptophan to get into the brain. Serotonin production goes up, and sluggishness follows.
Passengers on a Bus
Another thought is to think of these AA’s tryptophan and tyrosine as passengers on a bus. Who gets off the bus and enters the brain cells will depend on these quirky ratios of carbs to proteins. The insulin production from complex carbs allows AA tryptophan to get off the bus, giving us that calming effect to get ready to sleep. Higher protein-rich meals with fewer carbs, let the brain-revving AA tyrosine get off the bus, enabling us to enter our brain cells. Therefore, for students and working adults high protein, medium carb meals are best for breakfast or lunch. This will give your brain a boost of energy and alertness for your day.
For this segment, the focus is on food to enjoy better sleep quality.
Meals such as kale; turkey; fish, especially salmon, halibut, spinach; legumes; oats; almonds; and sesame seeds are examples of food high in tryptophan-containing proteins and complex carbohydrates that will relax or even sedate the brain.
RECIPES
Food to Aid in Sleep
Hello Palate Roasted Sweet Potato with Sauteed Chickpea and Kale
Hello Palate Roasted Sweet Potato Tahini Dressing
Kale, White Bean & Sweet Potato Korma (via goop.com) This vegan korma recipe contains kale full of tryptophan and sweet potatoes, which are good for sleep (but you should pass on the red chili flakes or you could find yourself waking up in the night!).
Hello Palate Smoked Salmon Red Boat Jasmine Rice Bites. Salmon contains tryptophan and jasmine rice has been proven to shorten the amount of time it takes to get to sleep so coupling these two together in a meal is likely to give you a good night’s sleep..
Additional Ideas
Scrambled eggs and feta
Hummus with grilled veggies and pita bread
Light meals of Seafood like a fillet of fish with veggies
Chickpea pasta with sautéed veggies
Poultry vegetable stir fry
Sesame seed crusted salmon with kale salad
Rice and lentils with tahini dressing
A snack bowl of cottage cheese and pitted cherries with sliced almonds
Bedtime snack of homemade oats with cherries, with mixed nuts of walnuts and almonds.
Food Choices for Good Sleep
Foods containing melatonin – This is the chemical that helps to control our circadian rhythm (natural body clock), and it can also help to aid sleep. Cherries contain melatonin, and one study found that drinking tart cherry juice can reduce insomnia severity. Walnuts also contain melatonin and chickpeas are rich in vitamin B6 which is needed to make the chemical.
Eating 1–2 medium kiwis before bed may help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Summary: Kiwis are rich in serotonin and antioxidants, which may improve sleep quality when eaten before bed.
Jasmine rice is also a carbohydrate good for sleep, as one study found that when participants had jasmine rice four hours before they went to bed, it shortened the amount of time that it took them to go to sleep.
Foods containing magnesium – avocados are good for sleep as they contain magnesium and potassium, both of which are natural muscle relaxants. Whole grains and almonds also contain magnesium, another good food choice before bed. One study found a connection between magnesium deficiency and waking up throughout the night, so you must have some in your diet.
Herbal tea, particularly chamomile and lemon balm, can also help you to sleep as it has a mild sedative effect. Herbal teas do not contain any caffeine, unlike regular tea, which would keep you awake.
If you have trouble falling asleep, it is best to avoid food that spikes blood sugar, at least four hours before bed. Depending on how long it takes you to fall asleep, it is usually more troublesome for you than avoiding any post-dinner sweets. Instead, consider those treats of dark chocolate or a bowl of coconut ice cream after your afternoon workout.
Anything you eat that is all carb, and exceptionally high in junk sugars will miss out on the sleep-inducing effects of tryptophan.
Remember, if falling asleep is an issue for you heed the wisdom “don’t dine after nine”.
Resources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16848706/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK28242/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32998296/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34737364/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32156003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6647184/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7215804/
