"An improper diet is one of the main reasons for this, which is not only due to an unbalanced nutritional mix of foods, but also because many people eat foods before bed that can easily affect sleep quality, such as sweet potatoes, peas, corn, and chili," said Xiong Xinying, Chief Physician of the Neurology Department at China-Japan Friendship Hospital.
Many people know which foods can help promote sleep, but few know that some foods not only fail to aid sleep but can actually cause insomnia. Now is the season for roasted sweet potatoes, and their sweet and fragrant taste is a delight, but 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 considerable amount of gas during digestion. By bedtime, the undigested gas can cause bloating, which interferes with normal sleep.
In addition to foods that have a filling effect and stimulants of 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 foods not only easily cause a burning sensation in the stomach and indigestion, but they also consume the body's sleep-promoting mediators during digestion, thereby affecting sleep.
Greasy foods can also cause insomnia because the process of digesting them increases the workload on the intestines, stomach, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas, stimulating the central nervous system and keeping it in a constant state of activity, which delays the onset of sleep.
Xiong Xinying recommends that dinner should be as light as possible and that it is best to finish eating before 8 PM.