Eat, Sleep, Repeat: How Sleep and Nutrition Go Hand-in-Hand
By Faith Haney, PostGlo Intern
The connection between nutrition and sleep is a two-way street. Your diet can have a profound impact on sleep quality, while your sleep habits in turn influence what you eat. Let’s talk about how everyone’s favorite pastimes of eating and sleeping are more closely related than you might think.
Why Is Sleep Important?
Sleep has a profound impact on physical and mental health, so it is crucial to ensure you are getting both good quality and enough sleep on a regular basis. Sleep provides your body the opportunity to repair tissues, regulate metabolic processes, and consolidate memories. Your brain health, mental wellbeing, and abilities to learn and problem-solve are dependent on the information processing that occurs while you are resting. Inadequate sleep quality or quantity can have negative health effects, such as an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, hormonal dysregulation, poor immune function, and cognitive impairments (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 2022). Experts recommend adults aim for 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, though young adults, older adults, and those who experience frequent sleep interruptions may require up to 10 hours (Mayo Clinic, 2025).
How Does Sleep Impact Diet?
Though you may not realize it, your sleep patterns can have a direct impact on your daily food choices. As mentioned, sleep deprivation can disrupt hormonal regulation, including the hormones responsible for regulating appetite and energy metabolism. Among those lacking sleep, the hormone ghrelin (which signals hunger) increases, while the hormone leptin (which signals fullness) decreases, leading to increased food consumption and cravings for fatty, sugary, and salty foods that provide quick energy (Frates, 2021). Furthermore, studies have found that poor quality sleep and short sleep duration can lead to metabolic shifts. For example, insufficient sleep can result in reduced insulin sensitivity, causing the body to store more energy as fat and increasing the risk of developing metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes (Singh et al., 2022).
What Should I Eat to Sleep Well?
Just as sleep has an influence on nutrition, what you eat or drink can affect the quality of your sleep. One of the more well-known examples includes foods or beverages containing caffeine or alcohol, which research suggests should not be consumed within four hours of bedtime (Pattnaik et al., 2022). In addition, consuming a diet high in saturated fat and refined carbohydrates with low amounts of fiber has been shown to result in less slow-wave (restorative) sleep with a greater number of interruptions (St-Onge et al., 2016). Eating spicy and fatty foods late in the evening can trigger digestive symptoms like acid reflux that impair your ability to fall and stay asleep (Pattnaik et al., 2022).
Furthermore, the amount of food you consume may hinder sleep quality. Eating a large meal directly before bed forces your body to remain in an active digestive state, which can disrupt your circadian rhythm and lead to physical discomfort due to higher body temperature and potential acid reflux or heartburn. On the opposite end, not consuming enough food throughout the day or consuming only quick-digesting carbohydrates close to bedtime like foods high in sugar can also disturb sleep by causing you to wake up in the middle of the night from hunger (Mantantzis et al., 2022). Striking the balance between not going to bed starving or overly stuffed can be difficult, but focusing on spreading your meals and snacks throughout the day can help take pressure off the need to eat a lot in the evenings. Eating dinner several hours before bedtime with a smaller nighttime snack closer to bed if you are still hungry can ensure you are able to sleep soundly without digestive discomfort disrupting your rest.
When thinking about what foods to include in your final meal and/or snack of the day, experts recommend opting for foods with certain nutrients and compounds that are linked with better sleep quality (Suni, 2022). These include foods like tart cherries, nuts, and low-fat dairy, which are rich in the hormone melatonin that regulates your body’s sleep-wake cycle. In addition, aim to consume foods high in the amino acid tryptophan (a building block of protein that can be metabolized to melatonin and serotonin, a neurotransmitter important for sleep) such as pumpkin seeds, fatty fish, poultry, and soy-based foods like tofu. Magnesium also plays a role in melatonin modulation and muscle relaxation, so magnesium-rich foods like bananas, nuts, soy, beans, and whole grains are a great choice for the evening. Beans and whole grains are also a great source of fiber, which is associated with improved slow-wave/restorative sleep (St-Onge et al., 2016).
Lastly, studies have shown that the timing of meals can profoundly impact your circadian rhythm and sleep quality. Irregular meal and snack times that shift from day-to-day or entail that the majority of food consumption is concentrated in a small window of time (particularly close to bedtime) can lead to misalignment of the circadian rhythm and poor sleep. Meanwhile, having a routine eating pattern in which meals and snacks are consumed at roughly the same time each day (with room for flexibility) has been shown to allow for alignment between digestion and your 24-hour body clock, which also improves sleep (Pattnaik et al., 2022).
Sleep and nutrition are more intertwined than most people realize. Good sleep and quality nutrition go hand-in-hand, with the neglect of one negatively impacting the other. Despite the common messages encouraging us to sacrifice sleep in order to keep up work and/or personal responsibilities, it is important to prioritize adequate rest to prevent a decline in mental or physical health while giving you a better chance at eating a nutritious diet.
References
Frates, E. P. (2021). Could what we eat improve our sleep? Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/could-what-we-eat-improve-our-sleep-2021030922112
Mayo Clinic. (2025). How many hours of sleep are enough for good health? Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/how-many-hours-of-sleep-are-enough/faq-20057898
Mantantzis, K., Campos, V., Darimont, C., & Martin, F. P. (2022). Effects of dietary carbohydrate profile on nocturnal metabolism, sleep, and wellbeing: a review. Frontiers in Public Health, 10, 931781.
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2022). How Sleep Works - Why Is Sleep Important? National Institutes of Health https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/why-sleep-important
Pattnaik, H., Mir, M., Boike, S., Kashyap, R., Khan, S. A., & Surani, S. (2022). Nutritional Elements in Sleep. Cureus, 14(12), e32803. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.32803
Singh, T., Ahmed, T. H., Mohamed, N., Elhaj, M. S., Mohammed, Z., Paulsingh, C. N., Mohamed, M. B., & Khan, S. (2022). Does Insufficient Sleep Increase the Risk of Developing Insulin Resistance: A Systematic Review. Cureus, 14(3), e23501. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.23501
St-Onge, M. P., Roberts, A., Shechter, A., & Choudhury, A. R. (2016). Fiber and saturated fat are associated with sleep arousals and slow wave sleep. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 12(1), 19-24.
Suni, E. (2022). The Best Foods to Help You Sleep. Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/food-and-drink-promote-good-nights-sleep