Other than putting away your smart devices before bedtime and sipping warm milk, there are other foods and drinks that help insomniacs sleep better.

Getting a good night’s sleep is critically important to your overall health and function. In fact, studies show that getting a good rest may reduce your risk of developing certain illnesses, keep your brain working at optimum performance and help you avoid stress, but there’s more to good sleep than just a comfy bed. When it comes to health, diet is crucial and knowing the foods that help you sleep better is a great place to start. After all, there are plenty of foods to help sleep, some are just better than others.

Best foods for sleep

Foods rich in tryptophan, carbohydrates, calcium, magnesium, melatonin, and vitamin B6 can all help promote quality sleep.

TEA

L-theanine, dubbed the relaxation amino acid, is found in teas such as the green, black and white varieties. Certain amino acids found in foods can help with sleep by nourishing the nervous system. And while tea has caffeine, its jagged, energizing effects are reduced by L-theanine.

When it comes to drinks and foods that make you sleepy, you can’t really go past chamomile tea. Chamomile tea has been used as a natural remedy for years to reduce inflammation, anxiety and treat insomnia

Russian salad with fruits. Photo: VegeCravings

FRUITS

There are a few factors that the best foods for sleep all have in common and one of them is melatonin. A naturally produced hormone, melatonin helps you fall asleep by calming the body before bed. Certain fruits that contain melatonin may help you fall asleep faster and wake up less often during the night. These include tart cherry juice; pineapple; oranges, limes, lemons, bananas, kiwis, or cherries.

In sleep-deprived laboratory rats, Vitamin C prevented memory impairment and maintained normal levels of antioxidants in the brain, which usually go down due to the lack of sleep, reported the Brain Research Bulletin in 2015.

The Vitamin C in these citrus fruits isn’t just good for boosting your immune system, it also nourishes the adrenal glands.

Bananas are an excellent source of magnesium and potassium, which help to relax overstressed muscles. They also contain tryptophan, which converts to serotonin and melatonin, the brain's key calming hormones.

A glass of cherry juice may be an effective way to fall asleep faster, says a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Rochester. In their study, they found that cherries, particularly tart cherries, naturally boosted the body's supply of melatonin, which helped people with insomnia.

Kiwi is another great source of melatonin, which could make you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly through the night.

CINNAMON

Cinnamon nourishes the nervous system by calming the blood sugar levels. This is important from an insomnia perspective because often if you find yourself waking up in the small hours, it could be down to blood sugar spikes that subsequently wake you up as your blood sugar drops.

GINGER

Besides aiding digestion, ginger is a great overall tonic for the nervous system too.

Almond Cashew Young Green Rice Milk.

ALMONDS

You might not know it, but nuts are among the best foods for good sleep and it has a lot to do with fat content. Almonds, in particular, are rich in healthy fats, which your body needs to metabolize other aspects of your diet.

Artist Manami Sasaki created a Zen garden on her bread complete with sour cream-raked pebbles, walnuts, macadamia nuts and matcha powder.

WALNUTS

Much like the almonds before, walnuts are among the best foods to help you sleep. Rich in melatonin, walnuts can help regulate your sleeping pattern and improve the quality of your rest.

Or other nuts include flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. These all boost serotonin levels by having magnesium and tryptophan.

YOGURT

Calcium processes the hormones that help you sleep, tryptophan and melatonin. Calcium, of course, can be found in anything dairy-related if you don’t like yogurt. Other things you can try are milk or cheese and crackers.

Photo: The Spruce Eats

EGGS

Eggs are popular in the morning, but they also can make you sleepy due to having tryptophan. Try having some breakfast for supper and see what happens.

Worst foods for sleep

While some of the foods in the list below should be avoided generally, some of them are only troublesome when it comes to helping you fall asleep, so they should be avoided at dinnertime.

Caffeine from coffee or chocolate

Alcohol

Spicy foods

Overly fatty foods

Sugary junk foods

How late can you eat before bed?

To sleep better at night, have dinner two to four hours before bedtime. It’s not advisable to go to bed on a full stomach. When your digestive system is in full swing, it’s difficult for the rest of your body to settle down.

A recent study found eating at night negatively affects sleep quality in general, although different people react differently.

However, if you have good self-control, a small snack after dinner can help curb your appetite for snacking later in the night.

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