Like most busy people, you might not realise the times you consume snacks keeping you up at night. In truth, most insomniac parents and children are guilty of snacking on different types of food that keep them awake.
Many people across the globe suffer from insomnia or difficulty sleeping. There is a number of risk factors that could affect your sleeping pattern. Experts identify a few major foods that are guilty of affecting your sleep at night.
Insomnia is a common sleep disorder anyone could experience. It is a condition wherein a person with insomnia experiences trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting quality sleep.
It is saddening that this sleeping disorder could interfere with your daily activities. Additionally, having trouble with sleeping can also make you feel unrested or sleepy during the day.
There are various factors that could affect your difficulty in sleeping. It could be stress, environment, work, poor sleeping environment, or it could also be food and beverages.
7 Snacks That Are Keeping You Up at Night
If you are one of several people in different parts of the world experiencing insomnia and difficulty sleeping, this article is perfect for you. We also encourage parents to watch out for these snacks if their children struggle with sleeping.
Experts have found that some food could significantly affect your sleep. These seemingly-harmless snacks also contribute to insomnia and unwanted energy during bedtime. Here are some snacks that may prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep:
Cookies, Cakes, and Pastries
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Cookies and cakes are the typical sweets that everyone loves. These and other sweet pastries fall under the category of snacks keeping you up at night. Eating these before bed often negatively affects your quality of sleep.
Additionally, foods like cookies and cakes are high in fat and sugar. These are food contents that can interrupt healthy sleep patterns, especially when you have them before going to bed.
An increase in your blood sugar levels could also result from high sugar content intake. Concerning this, it could lead to an increase in insulin and a compounding chain of events, resulting in insomnia.
Anything with Caffeine
Caffeine is one of the most known and familiar things that could affect one’s quality. Most people know how can caffeine intake could result in trouble sleeping.
People typically consume caffeine by having certain beverages like coffee and tea. However, there could also be some instances when caffeine can be found in foods like chocolates.
A reasonable amount of caffeine is good in keeping you awake; it could help give you energy. However, too much caffeine can cause a decrease in your total sleep time and quality of sleep. It could also affect the usual time that you fall asleep.
Fast Food
Yes, believe it or not, meals from fast food chains are snacks keeping you up at night. In truth, most of us are guilty of ordering burgers or sodas when hunger strikes late at night.
Nowadays, recent technology allows people to make ordering foods online faster and easier. Unfortunately, fast foods and other highly processed foods can pose adverse effects on your health, as well as your good sleep.
These kinds of food are commonly high in sodium, saturated fats, and added sugars. It can affect the quality of your sleep, mainly when you consume it in excess.
Furthermore, most meals from fast food chains aim to give energy to consumers. Most of them may seem light but they’re actually some of the bad snacks keeping you up at night.
Aged or Cured Foods
There are many aged and cured foods that most people commonly enjoy. Unfortunately, these kinds of foods are usually high in sodium. Concerning this, foods that are high in sodium are frequently linked to elevated blood pressure levels.
Additionally, experts found that several aged and cured foods contain amino acids. This could result in to increase in brain activity and may cause trouble in sleeping.
This includes snacking on cold cuts or meat at night before bed. Those who do this tend to stay up at night longer than intended.
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Alcohol
Many people believe that alcohol could help them when they are having trouble sleeping. They use alcohol to help sleep.
Unfortunately, doing such things could have adverse effects on your sleeping pattern. It is because alcohol can mess up your healthy sleep pattern by disrupting sleep stages, which could eventually lead to insomnia.
Additionally, alcohol may prompt disturbances in your body that could cause short sleep duration. It may not be like most snacks keeping you up at night but you should still avoid it for better sleep.
White Bread
There are certain foods you eat that you never thought could affect the quality of your sleep as well as your sleeping patterns. One of that food includes white bread.
White bread is one good example of refined grains and foods. It contains a high glycemic index and can contribute to a high glycemic load. With this kind of food content, white bread can contribute to a quick increase in your blood sugar levels.
Additionally, experts also say that carbohydrates could affect your sleep duration and quality. This makes this certain type of bread one of the snacks keeping you up at night.
Black Tea
Believe it or not, if you drink black tea with snacks keeping you up, sleep will be harder for you at night. Yes, we know that tea helps calm us, especially when drunk hot.
However, black tea contains a higher concentration of caffeine than other types of tea. Concerning this, black tea can act as a stimulant and keep you awake at night.
A cup of black tea contains about 47 milligrams of caffeine. This amount of caffeine is about two-thirds of the caffeine found in coffee. Because of this, some people drink black tea as an alternative to coffee or other snacks keeping you up.
If you still want to continue drinking black tea, we suggest you drink it during the time you need to stay awake. Meanwhile, we also encourage you to swap it with green tea if you want to drink tea before bed.
This article has been republished with the permission of theAsianparent Singapore.