5 Foods That Make You Have Insomnia or Sleeping Trouble

Have you ever felt like it is so hard to sleep? You tried your best to keep closing your eyes, counting the sheep, and even drinking hot milk, but still, you can’t fall asleep. If this happens to you and it lasts for many days, weeks, and months, you might experience insomnia. 

So, what is the definition of insomnia?

Basically, insomnia is a sleep disorder that makes someone feel hard to fall asleep or stay asleep. It must be annoying to experience insomnia because you either can’t sleep at all or keep waking up in the middle of the night. In the morning, insomnia people will not feel fresh. Instead, they feel very tired with soreness all over their body. 

What is the side effect of insomnia?

People with insomnia will experience low energy levels. They will constantly have bad moods, which in the end affects their school or work performance. Their quality of life will drastically decrease because they don’t sleep enough for seven to eight hours at night. 

What food causes insomnia?

Here are the top 5 foods and drinks that disturb your sleeping pattern and can cause insomnia.

Caffeinated Products 

When you consume caffeinated products, you will immediately feel energized and wide awake. Foods and beverages that contain caffeine are soda, coffee, green or black tea, tiramisu cake, and some chocolate. Caffeinated products can negatively affect your sleep and keep you awake all night if you consume them too much. This can create “the cycle of coffee”. 

What is “the cycle of coffee”? 

The cycle of coffee is when you drink a lot of coffee to fight the feelings of tiredness because you couldn’t sleep the night before which was caused by the coffee you drank the day before. A lot of experts say it is good to cut back on our caffeine intake to have good sleep at night, especially if we are sensitive to caffeine.

The conclusion is, coffee is not good if you’re trying to sleep well at night. Don’t drink coffee if you have insomnia symptoms because coffee and other caffeinated drink or food can worsen the insomnia condition.

Alcohol

Alcohol is a psychoactive substance. What is a psychoactive substance? A psychoactive substance or psychoactive drug is a chemical substance, that can change the functions of people’s nervous system. It alters people’s perception, consciousness, mood, or behavior.

You may know that a lot of people use wine -which contain alcohol- or other alcoholic drink to help them sleep. But actually, drinking alcohol can affect healthy sleep patterns negatively. Alcohol can disrupt sleep stages which in the end leads to insomnia.

So, can you drink alcohol when you have insomnia? If you want to recover fast from insomnia, don’t drink alcohol. Is alcohol bad for people with insomnia? Absolutely.

Sweet Dessert

Candy or other desserts usually have a high level of added sugars and saturated fats.  If you don’t know already, saturated fat and added sugars are linked to different types of health problems and one of them is insomnia. Once again, foods that contain a lot of sugar make people have bad quality of sleep and sleep disturbances.

So if you’re trying to get a good sleep at night, stay away from overly sweet food and dessert. 

Spicy Food

When was the last time you eat spicy food? If you’re suffering from insomnia, you might want to stop eating spicy food because maybe the spicy foods that you eat are the “villain” that causes you to have insomnia. Eating spicy foods close to bedtime can keep you stay awake all night. 

why eating spicy food is bad for people with insomnia? Well, the reason is that spicy foods can cause indigestion and worsen the condition of acid reflux and heartburn. The moment you lie down to sleep, the acid in your stomach can travel into the esophagus and it will cause irritation. This condition will make you feel uncomfortable when you lie down. It forces you to stay awake all night.

Fatty foods

Do you like to eat fried chicken? How about a beef burger? Well, it is bad news for you because foods high in fat contribute to poor quality of sleep. Especially if you eat this big meal too close to bedtime. Research shows that eating a lot of fatty foods close to the sleeping period negatively affects sleeping patterns.

So, why eating fatty foods before going to sleep might cause insomnia? There should be more research about this, but most likely it is because your digestive system slows down when you’re sleeping. That is why eating a fatty meal before sleeping can overwhelm your digestive system. This condition leads to discomfort that can keep you awake all night. It gets even worse if you have heartburn or acid reflux because food that is high in fats worsens the condition of acid reflux and heartburn.

If you’re craving “fatty foods” you can choose food with the healthy type of fats. It would be a great alternative for your health and sleeping patterns.

After reading the article, you might wonder, “will I have a better sleep pattern if I avoid the foods and drinks listed above?”

The short answer is, maybe. 

Here is the explanation, if those foods and drinks are the ones that trigger your insomnia condition, of course, you will have better sleep if you avoid consuming the food and drink listed above. But actually, insomnia is a complex health condition that might be caused by several other things. 

What causes insomnia other than consuming certain foods and drinks?

Stress

If you have a lot of concerns about any aspect of your life (could be school, work, finance, health, etc), it can keep your mind busy and too active at night which in the end makes it hard for you to fall asleep and lead to insomnia. 

Irregular Schedule

If you do something that is different from your regular schedule, your circadian rhythms which regularly act as an internal clock would be disrupted and it can lead you to have insomnia. For example, usually you sleep at 10 PM. But because you’re traveling to the other part of the world with a different time zone, your body can’t easily adapt to the new sleeping hours, and it causes you to get jet lag and bad sleeping patterns. 

Bad sleeping habits

One example of a bad sleeping habit is when you have an irregular bedtime schedule. As written above, your body has circadian rhythms that regulate your life cycle every 24 hours. If you don’t have a specific time for bed, it might cause you to have a bad sleeping pattern. An uncomfortable sleeping environment can also affect the healthy sleeping cycle which in the end leads to insomnia. 

The conclusion is, insomnia is a complex body condition that can happen because of several reasons. If you are experiencing a bad sleeping pattern, try to eliminate the consumption of triggering food and change your lifestyle. It might help you to sleep better at night. Good luck!