Looking For A Healthy Bedtime Snack? A Sleep Specialist Shares 3 Ideas
There's an old well-being wives' tale that goes something like this: Any food consumed after dinner is more likely to disrupt your sleep and cause weight gain. In reality, most experts agree that, as long as you're not intermittent fasting, there's no reason to fear a bedtime snack. In fact, the right one can help your sleep, not harm it.
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Why you don't want to go to bed on an empty stomach.
First, a quick refresher on why you don't need to avoid food after dinner: Going to bed on an empty stomach can cause your blood sugar to dip in the middle of the night. In response, your body produces a number of hormones to help bring it back into balance, including cortisol—an important hormone in the stress response. An excess of cortisol can disrupt your sleep by throwing off your sleep-wake schedule and causing you to wake in the middle of the night.
With this in mind, psychologist and behavioral sleep medicine specialist Shelby Harris, PsyD, DBSM, tells mbg that, "If you're someone who wakes up in the middle of the night ravenous, a light snack is fine before bed."
However, Harris adds, while you don't want to go to bed hungry, you don't want to go to bed too full, either. "Eating larger meals within three hours of bed can cause trouble falling asleep in some people," she says.
In addition to avoiding heavy meals, you'll want to stay away from fatty, spicy, and acidic foods after dinner—as she says these can also harm sleep quality.
Instead, Michael Breus, Ph.D., a board-certified sleep specialist, generally recommends a light (200- to 250-calories or so) snack about 30 minutes before bed. While everybody is different, a combination of carbs, protein, and/or healthy fats will be satiating—but not stimulating—for most folks.
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A sleep specialist's go-to snacks.
The next time you're feeling peckish before bed, Harris recommends the following healthy snacks. All of them, she says, will "help regulate your blood sugar throughout the night so you might not wake up so hungry."
- Half a banana and peanut butter
- 1-2 whole wheat crackers and cheese
- A small serving of Greek yogurt
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Reaching for these healthy, hearty nibbles before bed can help keep hunger to a minimum as you sleep—which can pay dividends for your diet once you wake up, too. Recent research confirms that those who get adequate sleep also tend to keep up with a healthier diet and be less prone to overeating1, so a little healthy snack at night might be just what you need to resist unhealthy snacking during the day.
The bottom line.
If you occasionally wake up hungry in the middle of the night, you might want to try eating a light snack before bed. Keep some yogurt, cheese and crackers, or a banana and peanut butter on hand to keep your blood sugar—and your sleep—steady through the entire night.
Emma Loewe is the Sustainability and Health Director at mindbodygreen and the author of Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us. She is also the co-author of The Spirit Almanac: A Modern Guide To Ancient Self Care, which she wrote alongside Lindsay Kellner.
Emma received her B.A. in Environmental Science & Policy with a specialty in environmental communications from Duke University. In addition to penning over 1,000 mbg articles on topics from the water crisis in California to the rise of urban beekeeping, her work has appeared on Grist, Bloomberg News, Bustle, and Forbes. She's spoken about the intersection of self-care and sustainability on podcasts and live events alongside environmental thought leaders like Marci Zaroff, Gay Browne, and Summer Rayne Oakes.