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5 Simple Changes to Reset Your Sleeping Patterns
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Many people nowadays work graveyard shifts, swing shifts, work late into the night at the office, or hold several jobs, while others travel so frequently is seems as if they suffer from permanent jet lag. Getting some quality sleep is not always an easy thing, no matter how tired we are sometimes. Sleeping in erratic patterns can throw off our body’s natural rhythm, called our circadian rhythm. Our internal clocks rely on natures signals to tell us when it’s time to wake up, when to eat, and when to sleep. Our bodies used to rely on natural sunlight, but in today’s artificial world, even electric lights and computer screens confuse our natural rhythm.
New studies show, however, that you can reset that internal clock by changing some of the foods in your daily diet.
Researchers doing studies in Japan discovered that there is a connection between what we eat and our body’s circadian rhythm. It’s all about the insulin, folks. Our pancreas makes this hormone when we eat, and certain foods cause more of an insulin release than others. An insulin rush will make you feel tired. So, by eating foods that cause your pancreas to produce more insulin, you can reset your natural rhythm so you get sleepy, like you naturally should. The flip side of this coin is, by eating foods that don’t hit that insulin button, you should feel more awake.
So by adjusting what you have for dinner, you should begin to feel sleepy at a reasonable hour so you can get some serious sleep and be refreshed in the morning (find out why you should sleep). This means that dinner should include a lot of carbs. Try eating foods that are rich in carbs for dinner such as rice, potatoes, pasta. The opposite would be true of breakfast, avoid carbs and eat lean proteins, fresh fruits, and veggies.
For those of us with more normal working hours, we sometimes find that our clock is a bit out of synch with that clock on the wall. Perhaps you could benefit from a bit of this manipulation. Most of us live lifestyles that include being exposed to those blue lights that come from our tablets, cell phones, laptops, and televisions. By altering our diet, we can get our clocks back on schedule without having to make drastic changes to our lifestyles. Read also why you should turn off netflix and go to sleep.
Although it might seem strange that what we eat is somehow connected with how our brains are timed to fall asleep but it’s true. Scientists are only just beginning to understand how our diets affect how our brain works and how we sleep.
Take a look at the top 5 dietary changes you should incorporate into your life to try to reset your natural sleeping pattern.
1. What’s For Dinner? Fats and Carbs
If your body is always running on the sugar and caffeine you feed it during the day, you probably find that you are hungry all the time and have big energy slumps (which you then fill with caffeine and sugar). This is what you don’t need when you are trying to fall asleep.
Eat carbs and healthy fats at dinner. This means go ahead and make that spaghetti dinner with garlic toast, or potato soup with avocado on the side or try having breakfast for dinner, such as bagels, pancakes, or waffles. Loading up on carbs at dinner gives you that big spike of insulin you want so you feel sleepy a few hours after eating.
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