The surprising links between what you eat and how well you sleep | Hacker News Reader

The surprising links between what you eat and how well you sleep

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110 pointslxm41 comments

Also when you eat.

I recently started doing time restricted eating (16/8) which means I stop eating around 5pm at the latest on a week day. I sleep soooo much better than I used to. I'm not sure if it's a comfort thing, or perhaps some kind of hormonal/neuochemical response, but it really seems to have worked for me.

Specifically I fall asleep much quicker than I used to. I used to listen to podcasts to help me doze off, but now I'm asleep so fast I never actually get to listen to anything much.

Thanks I need to try the 5pm cutoff. my sleep patterns are horrible. Insomnia multiple nights a week.

Do that in addition to all the sleep hygiene things. No screens before going to bed, only using the bed to sleep, etc.

I'm always hungry just before bed. If I don't eat then I wake up hungry in the middle of the night. Any tips how to deal with that?

Have you tried adding more hearty/'stick to your ribs' style portions to your dinners? Thinks that make you feel satisfied and full longer, so you make it through the night.

Carbs.

I would actually say that this is one of the things that TRE helped me with.

After a couple of weeks it had basically reprogrammed my body and my brain's response to not eating. I do still get hungry, but I don't have sugar crashes and being hungry doesn't register in the same way. I find it easier to go to bed hungry now than I would in the past. A few months ago I would find it hard to get to sleep if I hadn't eaten in the evening, now it's the other way round.

You will do well to watch this:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0r7MbKFhtLf9RLOahCT1gU?si=9...

(matters not on your op of Joe, listen to the guests)

It’s so hard to get others on that early dinner schedule though!

I don't like eating late, but my fellow countrymen love to have barbecues late into the night. Oh well.

What do you class as early? For me anything earlier than 6.30pm is fine for helping me sleep, but keep portions sensible and be strict once you finish eating.

Which meal do you skip for 16/8 fasting? Is it dinner that you skip? Which one is better - skipping breakfast or dinner?

definitely breakfast. I can make it until noon on only water and a couple cups of black coffee with ease.

My approach as well, sometimes snack at 11.

Easy to do when I'm home, harder to do when I'm traveling, staying with friends, etc.

Exact same. Never eat before 11-12

I actually don't skip any meals. I have three small meals. Some people go the whole hog and just have one meal. However I would say delaying or skipping breakfast is definitely the easiest.

What time do you go to bed? I might want to try this but I also still like being a nightowl who goes to sleep at 1 or 2am

Nice thing about IMF is that you can keep your "nightowl" schedule. Using the more lax version of 16/8 (8 hour feeding window), you could use a feeding window of 2pm-10pm. I had a similar schedule back when I was a night owl but the wife didn't like it much. I've since moved to 18/6 with a feeding window of 12pm-6pm. I did it mostly for weight and fitness but absolutely noticed the sleep benefits, which I initially attributed to exercise.

The flexibility of time restrictions is one of the things I really like, I can fit it in around my daily schedule.

I'm definitely a night owl who sleeps around that time (usually around 1-2am but sometimes even later) and IF with an eight hour eating window between 12pm-8pm is really easy to do.

I usually start eating around 12:30pm and finish eating around 7pm but to me the occasional dinner that goes until 9pm is not a big deal. You get used to it after a few weeks. In fact it feels really weird to eat before sleep once you get used to IF.

This seems to be the consensus, but if I don't eat late I feel much more awake and can't fall asleep well.

You might find the book, The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda useful (details in my other comment).

Thanks for the resource! This is why I love HN, good information references.

What are some of the most useful insights you got from the book? Considering reading it...

You should read it being that it is from an actual Scientist/Researcher and not a Journalist/New Age Guru etc.

Check the reviews of the book on Amazon and elsewhere on the Web to get an idea of the highlights.

It has been a while since i read it, but a couple of things stayed with me;

1) The Circadian Clock is not a single thing; every organ in the body has its own clock and they all work together to provide a Circadian Rhythm. We are literally ruled by it and hence is most important to get right for optimal health.

2) Time Restricted Eating is the magic bullet for maintaining Good Health. Basically this means restricting all your food/drink to a 8-12 hr window. For some reason this seems to cure most illnesses and establishes equilibrium in the body.

3) Sleep Debt is a very real thing with immediate and long-term negative consequences.

4) Sunlight in the Morning and Dim lights in the Evening are optimal for getting good Sleep.

5) There was also something about Exercising in the Morning being better but don't recall now.

Great, thank you!

I do the same but 6.30pm-10.30am, which still means I get to eat with the family no problems, and have a late breakfast/brunch (so I have two main meals a day). Works very well for me with no excess hunger.

I also have dinner around 5pm these days. The way I've understood the effect: your body cannot go into a state of rest until it's finished "processing" all of the food you ate, and that process can take a while.

So even if you fall asleep on a full stomach, your body is not in a restful state yet.

I tried two meals a day, found it easy, went to one meal a day (always a big deal at my house anyway - all sitting around dinner table, lots of talking, dessert, coffee etc). Anywho, I was hoping to lose a bit of weight and instead lost a lot of weight, and sleep better than I have since I was a teenager (a long time ago now). Amazing results. And I still get to eat pizza, ice-cream, everything...

This is pretty much what Hindu Ayurveda says, when you eat and what you eat

For too long we have just been told calories are calories and equatable amongst foods

> For too long we have just been told calories are calories and equatable amongst foods

We have? I only recall 'calories are calories' being advised when it comes to losing weight.

Then again, weight loss is such a ubiquitous desire that it tends to underlie every conversation about food. So much so that it seems like weight loss is the only thing that gets most people to consider dietary changes.

At which point, "eat less" and "CICO" do seem to suggest to people that calories are the only thing to consider while gut health, metabolic health, sleep quality (TFA), etc. sit by the wayside.

Healthy eating requires insulin to drop. Eating all your calories within a short time allows this drop to occur. The same calories spread over a day and into the night keep your insulin levels up and this is not what our bodies like, long term. I was a skeptic of Dr Ekberg and the other holisitic doc's, but I needed to try something, and boy oh boy are they on to something. It's only a matter of time before constant snacking is viewed as dangerous to your long-term health as smoking.

Why is a drop in insulin desirable?

I’m just guessing but type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance- your cells don’t respond and pull in glucose correctly so not having insulin in your blood all the time might help keep sensitivity high.

I can't believe how many people commenting are resorting to crazy eating schedules and skipping meals. Surely a healthier diet, regular exercise, not too much caffeine, booze etc is a healthier way to lose weight and sleep better.

Why is fasting "surely" unhealthy? It's just unconventional relative to modern Western cultural norms.

It is hard to believe until you think about the lifestyle working in tech will lean one towards. It is then quite easy to see how, and why more extreme measures are required to get healthy. No fault of anyone, more like a price to pay for the otherwise pretty chill means of existing.

Relevant: The Circadian Code: Lose weight, supercharge your energy and sleep well every night by Dr. Satchin Panda (https://www.salk.edu/scientist/satchidananda-panda/)

Fruits and vegetables good, got it.

Have a look at all dietary recommendations around the world, they all say mostly the same thing: eat a lot of vegetables, legumes and whole grains, some fish, don't drink calories, and eat little of the rest.

Somewhere in there they also mention dairy (which may or may not include fortified substitutes) for the calcium.

Edit: I only looked at the ones in languages I understand (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, UK, USA, canada, Germany, austria, and Spain with the help of a friend). They were all remarkably similar.

Edit2: FAO summarised the Japanese ones here:https://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-dietary-guideli...

One can explore every country there. Poor countries where food can be scarce don't advice against animal products. Is that because it is eaten rarely by the general.population anyway? Or are they a good source of nutrients when calories may be scarce?

This use to be anti-science not long ago. Glad to see more people are realizing you don’t need medication for everything.

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