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A bowl of unsweetened cereal (e.g. rice puffs, bran flakes) or muesli high in complex carbs, coupled with milk makes for a yummy bedtime snack. As a bonus, the duo in this combo help your body produce melatonin to lead you into a more restful night.
It's tempting to reach for a box of cereal when hunger strikes at night, but most cereals contain large amounts of carbohydrates. This causes a spike and drop in blood sugar, which is especially problematic if you're diabetic or pre-diabetic. You may want to avoid eating cereal before sleeping.
The cereal of crunchy flakes and almonds, called Sweet Dreams, comes with a description that reads like a box of herbal tea, touting notes of lavender and chamomile, as well as vitamins and minerals intended to support your body's production of the sleep hormone melatonin.
It provides an excellent breakfast and an ideal snack any time of the day, including bedtime. However, balance is the key, and you can have too much of a good thing. Weetabix is fortified with certain vitamins and minerals and if eaten to excess, then you could be taking in too much of these nutrients.
According to Buchanan, protein “is the most immediately satiating macronutrient.” That's why nuts, hummus, and yogurt are all such excellent late-night snacks. Since melatonin is a sleep-enhancing hormone, foods rich in it such as pistachios, bananas, and grapes also serve as excellent bedtime treats.
Oatmeal. Hot or cold oatmeal might help prepare your body for sleep and keep you full throughout the night. Oats contain magnesium as well as melatonin, the sleep hormone. Consider making a batch of overnight oats with dried fruits and seeds for a simple nighttime snack option.
Cereal might be something you'd be more likely to eat in the morning than before bed, but there's nothing wrong with eating cereal at night, provided it fits in with your diet as a whole. The idea that it's bad to eat carb-dense foods -- like cereal -- before bed is false.
A new study says milk and cereal in the morning can help avoid overeating the rest of the day. A new study says milk when consumed with breakfast cereal may provide benefits for those managing diabetes. A well-balanced breakfast of carbohydrates, protein and fats is considered key to starting the day.
You're not eating enough carbs during the day
Restricting carbs during the day is a sure-fire way to crave them at night. It's a classic tale of “you want what you can't have,” and it's probably one of the most common causes of cravings I see from clients and Nutrition Training Program students.
Health experts advise against eating a full or heavy meal near bedtime. Consuming a large meal so close to sleeping can affect digestion and sleep quality. Over time, consuming most of a person's daily food intake late in the day can also lead to obesity.
Milk (and other dairy products) are a really good source of tryptophan. It's an amino acid that can help promote sleep, so it can come in particularly handy especially if you're used to tossing and turning before finally getting off to sleep.
Tryptophan triggers the brain's sleep process: Tryptophan is an amino acid known to promote sleep. View Source within the brain. Turkey contains high levels of tryptophan, so it is famously blamed for sleepiness after Thanksgiving dinner. Other foods with tryptophan include milk, bananas, oats, and chocolate.
Both calcium and carbohydrate-rich foods promote the effects of tryptophan, a sleep-promoting amino acid. Top picks for sleep are apples with peanut butter, cheese and crackers or cereal and milk.
Oatmeal is easy to prepare and can make you sleep well if you eat it before bed. It's rich in magnesium, silicon, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium, all of which support sleep. Don't, however, sprinkle too much sugar over the oats. Otherwise, you'll cancel out the calming effects.
Carbohydrate-rich foods like toast trigger insulin production. This induces sleep by speeding up the release of tryptophan, a chemical that helps to relax the body and send it off to sleep. Like toast, milk releases serotonin, another great body relaxer.