There’s an old well-being wives’ tale that goes something like this: Any food consumed after dinner is more likely to disrupt your sleep and cause weight gain. In reality, most experts agree that, as long as you’re not intermittent fasting, there’s no reason to fear a bedtime snack. In fact, the right one can help your sleep, not harm it.
Why you don’t want to go to bed on an empty stomach.
First, a quick refresher on why you don’t need to avoid food after dinner: Going to bed on an empty stomach can cause your blood sugar to dip in the middle of the night. In response, your body produces a number of hormones to help bring it back into balance, including cortisol—an important hormone in the stress response. An excess of cortisol can disrupt your sleep by throwing off your sleep-wake schedule and causing you to wake in the middle of the night.
With this in mind, psychologist and behavioral sleep medicine specialist Shelby Harris, PsyD, DBSM, tells mbg that, “If you’re someone who wakes up in the middle of the night ravenous, a light snack is fine before bed.”
However, Harris adds, while you don’t want to go to bed hungry, you don’t want to go to bed too full, either. “Eating larger meals within three hours of bed can cause trouble falling asleep in some people,” she says.
Instead, Michael Breus, Ph.D., a board-certified sleep specialist, generally recommends a light (200- to 250-calories or so) snack about 30 minutes before bed. While everybody is different, a combination of carbs, protein, and/or healthy fats will be satiating—but not stimulating—for most folks.
A sleep specialist’s go-to snacks.
The next time you’re feeling peckish before bed, Harris recommends the following healthy snacks. All of them, she says, will “help regulate your blood sugar throughout the night so you might not wake up so hungry.”
Reaching for these healthy, hearty nibbles before bed can help keep hunger to a minimum as you sleep—which can pay dividends for your diet once you wake up, too. Recent research confirms that those who get adequate sleep also tend to keep up with a healthier diet and be less prone to overeating, so little healthy snack at night might be just what you need to resist unhealthy snacking during the day.
If you occasionally wake up hungry in the middle of the night, you might want to try eating a light snack before bed. Keep some yogurt, cheese and crackers, or banana and peanut butter on hand to keep your blood sugar—and your sleep—steady through the entire night.
