People who struggle to sleep well — and that’s roughly one in five of us, according to research — will be used to hearing familiar advice about wind-down bedtime routines, such as banishing your mobile phone well before lights out, taking a hot bath and even investing in blackout blinds. But you may be less familiar with the fact that what you eat throughout the day can play a part, too, as research is increasingly showing. Let me be clear: there’s no single food that will cure insomnia, but there is certainly evidence that some foods can help you sleep better and for longer.
And that’s important, because sleep is as essential for health and survival as food and water. It plays a significant role in our overall health, wellbeing and mood, for instance, as well as affecting our risk of long-term diseases. Poor sleep disrupts critical processes throughout your body, such as your immune system, making you more susceptible to infections — while certain foods that promote good sleep can have the opposite effect, as getting enough restful sleep strengthens your immune system.
It’s not just infections that sleep helps ward off. Consistently poor sleep is linked to a higher risk of depression, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, thought to be because of the way poor sleep disrupts the body’s balance of hormones and increases inflammation. Also your brain uses the time you’re asleep to recharge, clearing away toxins that accumulate through the day as by-products of th.