In the month of March, we celebrate Sleep Day. On this day, we focus on all things related to sleep. Our health is an essential part of this. Thus, good health ensures good sleep, and that good sleep in turn ensures good health and thus a long and healthy life. Therefore, it is very important to look closely at your diet and lifestyle. So this year’s Sleep Day theme is “Sleep soundly, nurture life” for good reason.
Eating well, essential to sleeping well
Proper nutrition contributes to a good night’s sleep. There are several reasons for this. Thus, not only does it matter how much you eat in a day, but it also matters what exactly you eat then. Food affects your gut and digestion, the production of sleep hormones and your blood sugar levels. And all these things, in turn, affect your sleep. So sleeping well begins with eating well. Poor sleep keeps your body in stress mode. Your gut plays a big role. I previously wrote a blog “Nutrition, gut and stress: the interaction.
Going to bed with a bulging belly or without food
With an empty stomach, you usually won’t sleep well, but the same goes for an overfull stomach. When you eat too little, you will find that you are likely to lie awake at night feeling hungry. When you eat too much or too fatty, your body is busy digesting and does not come to rest. It is also not good for your blood sugar levels. This one does not settle down. Your liver is also busy. So you will then have difficulty falling asleep. In addition, unhealthy eating makes you feel tired during the day because your body is fighting the bad food, so to speak, and this takes a lot of energy. Eating well and regularly(what do you need?) promotes digestion and ensures a good night’s sleep. Healthy nutrition and proper bowel function are therefore more important than we think. Proper nutrition gives you energy and poor nutrition depletes you. Eat during the day and not before bedtime. Thus, our body always has the amount of energy it needs: a lot during the day, a little at night. This only works if you eat healthy and do so in small portions.
Stable blood sugar and sufficient energy
To stay awake during the day and sleep well at night, it is important to eat in small portions. It actually makes perfect sense: eating too little equals not enough energy. But eating too many sugars can also make you tired due to high blood glucose or perhaps diabetes. Still, it is important to watch the things you eat then. For example, sugary or fatty foods will cause you to feel temporarily energized. But when your blood sugar drops again, you feel extra tired. The more quick sugar moments you have, the more tired you become. You drag yourself from eating moment to eating moment, so to speak. Two to three meals a day are basically sufficient. That way, you allow your system to rest and your blood sugar remains stable. In principle, snacks are not necessary. If you do, it is better to choose pure snacks such as fruits and nuts so that you have energy for longer periods of time. Finally, it is important to drink enough during the day. When you drink too little, you will suffer from headaches, and you will start to feel tired faster. Drinking enough water is again important for the elimination of waste products.
Nutrition with vitamins and minerals instead of filling
Many foods today have become mere filler because they contain too little or hardly any important vitamins and minerals. Vitamins and minerals are important if you want to sleep well. It is therefore important to choose food with the right vitamins and today, unfortunately, supplementing with the right supplements is not a luxury but a must! For example, vitamin B12, B6, iron, magnesium and more substances cause you to produce melatonin. Melatonin is your sleep hormone. Therefore, if you do not produce this properly due to deficiencies in your diet, you will not sleep well. You make this substance in the evening when it gets dark. So bright light is a NO GO to help your body unwind, as is blue light from your cell phone or tablet. A candle lit and dimmed light are factors that do allow your body to calm down. Vitamin B3 and other B vitamins are again important when it comes to the phase in which we dream, REM sleep, and ensures that we do not keep waking up at night. You can find this vitamin in meat and mushrooms, among other things. You can find vitamin B12 in animal products, which makes us feel fit during the day. So a deficiency will cause you to feel overtired. Even if it is in the diet, a malfunctioning gut (poor absorption) can still cause you to have deficiencies. Many people say “you are what you eat,” but I always say, “you are what your gut absorbs.
Specialist Frank Jonkers, BodySwitch Heemskerk
Often, eating healthy is not as easy as we may think. This is because nutrition is always personal. What is good for one person may be disastrous for another. For example, if you exercise a lot, you will need more and different nutrition than someone who prefers to lie on the couch in the evening with a book. Therefore, it is good to see what suits you and your situation. With targeted blood and stool testing, we can see what suits you. Want more information about this, or have other questions about a healthy lifestyle? Frank Jonkers of BodySwitch Heemskerk is a specialist in the field of nutrition and health. Also in relation to sleep problems! Once weighing 135 pounds himself, he had incipient cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many other health issues: including poor sleep. Maintaining the right diet and lifestyle almost always solves the problems! He has already helped more than a thousand people resolve health issues. Do you want to get healthy naturally? And be able to sleep better again? Then contact Frank Jonkers of BodySwitch Heemskerk and discover the possibilities!
Have a very good sleep!
Frank Jonkers
