A random survey conducted by the internationally renowned market research company TNS on 2,657 citizens aged 15-69 in six cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou—showed that Guangzhou has the highest adult insomnia rate, reaching 68%. Experts believe that unreasonable dietary structure, high psychological stress, and poor sleep habits are the main reasons for the high probability of insomnia.
"The reason why an unreasonable dietary structure is one of the main causes is not only due to the irrational nutritional combination of food, but also because many people eat foods that can easily affect sleep quality for dinner, such as sweet potatoes, peas, corn, and chili peppers," pointed out Xiong Xinying, chief physician of the Neurology Department at China-Japan Friendship Hospital.
Many people know which foods help promote sleep, but few know that some foods not only do not help with sleep but can also cause insomnia. Now is the season for roasted sweet potatoes, and their sweet and fragrant taste is a delight to eat. However, eating too much of these foods for dinner can easily lead to insomnia. This is because foods like sweet potatoes, corn, and peas produce a lot of gas during digestion. By bedtime, undigested gas can cause bloating, which interferes with normal sleep.
In addition to foods that have a satiating effect and stimulants for the central nervous system like coffee and tea, some spicy and salty foods, such as spicy snacks and garlic bread, can also affect sleep quality. Spicy food not only easily causes a burning sensation in the stomach and indigestion but also consumes sleep-promoting mediators in the body during digestion, thereby affecting sleep.
Excessively greasy food can also cause insomnia. This is because greasy food加重 the work burden on the intestines, stomach, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas during digestion, stimulating the central nervous system and keeping it in a working state, which delays the time for sleep.
Xiong Xinying suggests that dinner should be as light as possible, and it is better to finish dinner before 8 p.m.