“What you eat, how you sleep at night, and how you sleep at night are very closely related to your food choices.”
Minneapolis — The key to a healthier lifestyle is diet and exercise, right? Try adding a third component to that list.
“Diet. Exercise. Sleep. All three,” says Dr. Michael Howell, sleep expert at M Health Fairview and M Medical School. “What you eat, how you sleep at night, and how you sleep at night are very closely related to your dietary choices.”
Howell says people tend to choose foods high in sugar when they’re sleep-deprived.
“When you’re sleep-deprived, your brain is trying to figure this out and may have come to the conclusion that it needs an immediate source of energy that’s readily available.” It basically tells our brain that there is a readily available source of energy.
According to Dr. Howell, sleep deprivation affects the functioning of the frontal lobe of the brain, which usually leads to poor judgment.
“When we are sleep deprived, our brain changes in much the same way it did when we were teenagers…we lose the executive lobe function that provides us with a little more wisdom. It’s more likely to be a target.Decision,” he said.
There is also evidence that lack of sleep increases levels of hormones that make a person hungry.
“Then, when we eat, we don’t feel as full as when we don’t,” Howell said. “So we eat more and eat more often.”
If you want to get better sleep, Dr. Howell recommends three things you can do to get started.
- Watch what you eat before bed and avoid caffeine and alcohol
- Start paying attention to your natural sleep rhythm, the time your body wants to go to bed and wake up in the morning, and keep it consistent
- Howell recommends taking naps.
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