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Food

01st Apr 2019

Is what you’re eating during the day having an effect on your sleep?

Struggling to doze off?

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Is there anything worse than insomnia?

Disrupted sleep is a fact of life for many of us but given how busy our lives are and how vital your eight hours a night are for you long-term health, getting a peaceful night’s sleep is vital.

It’s something you might have suspected, but researchers have proven that the food you eat plays a role in how you sleep.

A new study has revealed that there are certain things to avoid for a deep, unbroken sleep.

Researchers found that the participants in the study who ate more fat and sugar and less fibre than others didn’t have great sleeping patterns and woke up a lot throughout the night.

Speaking about the findings, Professor Marie-Pierre St-Onge of Columbia University in New York said: “Our main finding was diet quality influenced sleep quality.

“It was most surprising a single day of greater fat intake and lower fibre could influence sleep parameters.”

The experiment also found that those who ate meals that were higher in protein and lower in saturated fat fell asleep quicker.

For the study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, experts looked at the sleep patterns of 26 men and women whilst altering their diets.