Sleep and Diet

[Cammmeron!]

Hey guys. Was just wondering if anyone knows what food groups can affect sleep and in what way. For example do carbs make you sleepier or more wakeful etc. I'm having trouble finding any information in relation to diet and sleep in my text book.

[aaackk]

I dont quite remember covering food groups in much detail last year, but i remember we did discuss items like Coffee and Alcohol and their effect on wakefulness through their inhibition/exhibition of certain neurotransmitters.

If youre using the Grivas textbook, there should be a short paragraph on that

[Cammmeron!]

Thanks aaackk, I cant find much on the relation between the two either in my text book, so I'll have to reference how caffeinated foods can inhibit sleep and so on. Thanks for the help

[abeybaby]

I know that in general, any food which requires significant digestion makes you sleepy, since blood flocks away from the muscles and towards the digestive system. Also, for some unknown reason to science, both very low AND very high blood glucose causes fatigue, so high carb foods would make you sleepy if you ate tonnes of it.

PS: I have 0 psychology background

[slothpomba]

Also, for some unknown reason to science, both very low

Also, death.

AND very high blood glucose causes fatigue,

Also, death again.

Blood glucose is actually kept within a very narrow range, if it's "very" high or low, you're in very serious trouble.

I'd avoid referencing it in these terms because usually people are very sick in this state and will die without treatment if the cause doesn't clear up on its own.

It may spike after you eat but it is rapidly bought within control in a healthy person, back to within that extremely narrow range, so, you can't put it down to blood sugar per se (perhaps the spike but over a range of time, blood sugar will return to normal).

I haven't done VCE Pysch but i think they're looking more towards items that would significantly affect sleep and/or sleep quality. Things that immediately spring to mind are caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine will make it harder (in theory) to get to sleep, you will certainly be less fatigued anyway. It'll affect your sleep throughout the night, if you want to know more, i'm sure you can manage to find out. Likewise, alcohol is a bit of a paradox, it will make you rather tired and sleepy (depends on how much you've had and other things but this is true as a general rule) but your sleep quality during the night will be worse off. People sometimes take a swig of alcohol before bed if they can't sleep. It'll help them get to sleep but once they are asleep, the quality may be degraded.

[spectroscopy]

for an average 8 hours night of sleep alcohol before bed suppresses REM and Stage 1 NREM for the first half of sleep but it increases in the last 4 hours, in the first half of sleep theoretically you should get more slow wave sleep
and caffeine( so things like coffee and chocolate) should keep you awake because it binds to the same receptors that adenosine does, effectively inhibiting adenosine receptors in the CNS, leading you to not succumbing to the effects of adenosine therefor keeping you awake

and i think that high GI foods should promote sleep because the greater amounts of insulin triggered by the high-GI meals increases the ratio of tryptophan to other amino acids in the blood, allowing proportionately more to get into the brain, which should make you sleepier