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How what you eat today influences your sleep tonight: Wisdom Wednesdays · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Everyone, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to dive into a really interesting piece of research
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  Speaker 1: that makes the point that your sleep tonight is actually
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  Speaker 1: heavily influenced by what you eat today. Now, this study
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  Speaker 1: per detailed food logs from people with at home sleep
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  Speaker 1: tracking to get a much clearer picture of how our
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  Speaker 1: day to day datary changes impact not just how long
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  Speaker 1: we sleep, but how well we sleep. And what they
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  Speaker 1: found is actually pretty interesting. So they found that on
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  Speaker 1: days where people ate more fiber and had a greater
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  Speaker 1: diversity of plant based foods, they actually experienced more deep
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  Speaker 1: sleep and rem sleep, They had less light and fragmented sleep,
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  Speaker 1: and they even had lower overnight heart rate. Now, on
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  Speaker 1: the flip side, when diets were higher in process foods
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  Speaker 1: and more animal based foods, sleep was more disturbed, with
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  Speaker 1: more wakefulness during the night and what researchers described as
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  Speaker 1: a less restorative sleep profile. And they also looked at
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  Speaker 1: meal timing. When dinner made up a larger proportion of
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  Speaker 1: total daily calories, people tended to sleep longer, but interestingly,
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  Speaker 1: their overnight heart rate was higher, whereas a longer gap
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  Speaker 1: between the last mail and bedtime was associated with slightly
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  Speaker 1: less sleep but a lower overnight heartbrate, so it's clearly
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a trade off. Now, one of the
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  Speaker 1: things I really liked about the study that was the
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  Speaker 1: way that was designed. Most research in this space compares
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  Speaker 1: different people, so it might ask whether people who ate
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  Speaker 1: better also slept better.
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  Speaker 2: But the problem is that those people.
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  Speaker 1: Also differ in a whole host of different ways, their
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  Speaker 1: stress levels, their routines, socioeconomic status, overall health, whether they've exercised,
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  Speaker 1: so it's hard to isolate diet a key factor in
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  Speaker 1: their sleep.
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  Speaker 2: But this study took a different approach. It looked at.
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  Speaker 1: Variation within the same person. In other words, it asked,
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  Speaker 1: when you eat differently from one day to the next,
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  Speaker 1: does your sleep change that night?
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  Speaker 2: And that's a much better question. So in the.
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  Speaker 1: Study, they use data from nearly threey six hundred adults
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  Speaker 1: in the Human Phenotype Project, which combined time stamp dietary
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  Speaker 1: logs with validated in home sleep tracking. They measured everything
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  Speaker 1: from total sleep time to sleep stages, how long it
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  Speaker 1: took to fall asleep, how often people woke up, and
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  Speaker 1: even their average sleeping heart rate. Now it's still not
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  Speaker 1: a randomized control trial, so We can't say with absolute
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  Speaker 1: certainty the diet causes these changes, but it's certainly getting closer.
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  Speaker 1: The authors actually described it as a qua quasi causal
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  Speaker 1: because it controls for stable traits like genetics and personality,
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  Speaker 1: but it also gets it's the timing rate looking at
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  Speaker 1: how today's diet effects tonight sleep.
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  Speaker 2: So let's dive into a little bit more.
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  Speaker 1: What did they find when it comes to meal timing, Well,
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  Speaker 1: it actually didn't drastically change the sleep stages. It mainly
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  Speaker 1: influenced sleep duration and how rared up the body was overnight.
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  Speaker 1: For example, eating earlier about four hours before bed versus
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  Speaker 1: two hours was linked to roughly twelve minutes less sleep,
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  Speaker 1: but a slightly lower overnight heart rate, And probably that
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  Speaker 1: overnight heart rate is because the digestive system wasn't working
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  Speaker 1: as hard and your digestive system is very energy hungry now.
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  Speaker 1: Having a larger dinner when it was about forty six
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  Speaker 1: percent of daily calories versus twenty nine percent on average
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  Speaker 1: was linked to about eight minutes more sleep, but again
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  Speaker 1: in a higher overnight heart rate and a longer eating
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  Speaker 1: window across the day, as in spreading your food out
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  Speaker 1: for a wider period was a slow associated with a
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  Speaker 1: slightly higher heart rate and falling asleep a little bit quicker.
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  Speaker 1: So timing matters, but not as much as what you
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  Speaker 1: do eat, because when it comes to sleep quality, particularly
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  Speaker 1: deep and rem sleep, diet composition had a real influence.
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  Speaker 1: They found that higher fiber intake was associated with more
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  Speaker 1: restorative sleep, more deep and rem sleep, and less light
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  Speaker 1: sleep and a lower overnight heart rate, and that for
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  Speaker 1: me is the biggie from this study. And they also
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  Speaker 1: found that greater plant diversity, so eating a wider range
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  Speaker 1: of plant foods, was linked to falling asleep faster, and
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  Speaker 1: again a lower heart rate and a higher proportion of
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  Speaker 1: plant based calories showed overall benefits that were quite similar. Interestingly, then,
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  Speaker 1: when they dug into the macro nutrients protein, carbs, and
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  Speaker 1: fat as percentages of total intake, they didn't find meaningful
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  Speaker 1: short term effects on sleep, which suggests that at least
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  Speaker 1: night tonight sleep may be more sensitive to food quality
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  Speaker 1: and timing than to tweaking your macros. Now, they also
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  Speaker 1: looked at micronutrients and while most didn't show any strong
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  Speaker 1: short term effects at all, a group of plant associated
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  Speaker 1: nutrients did trend in a consistent direction. When I say train,
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  Speaker 1: there wasn't a very clear distinction, but it did seem
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  Speaker 1: to point towards better sleep.
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  Speaker 2: They found that.
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  Speaker 1: Magnesium, vitamin C, foliate, and vitamin E were all associated
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  Speaker 1: with more deep and ram sleep and in some cases
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  Speaker 1: longer sleep duration and lower heartbreal. So again we're seeing
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  Speaker 1: this pattern of having lots of fruit and vegetables and
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  Speaker 1: fiber and your diet seems to support better sleep. Now,
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  Speaker 1: that's all about why that might be happening, because this
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  Speaker 1: where it does get interesting. One of the leading theories
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  Speaker 1: is that fiber feeds that got microbiome. I think we've
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  Speaker 1: all familiar with that, and we know that when the
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  Speaker 1: gut microbim is fed with fiber, it produces short chained
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  Speaker 1: fatty acids like butorrate, acetate, proprianate. And these aren't just
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  Speaker 1: metabolic byproducts, they're actually act as signaling molecules. So in
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  Speaker 1: animal studies, increasing buttorate levels has been shown to significantly
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  Speaker 1: increase non rem sleep and even lower even lower your
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  Speaker 1: body temperature or the body temperature of the animals, both
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  Speaker 1: of which are linked to better sleep. Now, these compounds
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  Speaker 1: also have a powerful influence on your gut brain axis.
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  Speaker 1: They can increase serotonin production in the gut, and we
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  Speaker 1: know that serotonin and plays a role in melatonin biology
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  Speaker 1: and circadian rhythms, and they may also help regulate the
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  Speaker 1: body's internal clock by influencing circarean signals in the gut. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on top of that, the microbiome produces other sleep related
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  Speaker 1: compounds like gabba, trip to pan and melatonin, and all
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  Speaker 1: of this is influenced by what we eat and when
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  Speaker 1: we eat it, and we're seeing some of this translate
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  Speaker 1: into human data as well. We know that high fiber
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  Speaker 1: intake has been linked to more slow wave of sleep,
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  Speaker 1: so that deeper sleep and greater fruit and vegetable intake
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  Speaker 1: has been associated with less disrupted sleep the same night,
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  Speaker 1: and even prebiotic supplementation has been shown to increase non
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  Speaker 1: rem sleep and time spent in bed. So clearly there's
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  Speaker 1: something going on here and when we focus on things
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  Speaker 1: like light exposure, screen time, and room temperature when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to sleep and rightly so, but this research is
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  Speaker 1: also a good reminder that diet is a big piece
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  Speaker 1: of the puzzle as well, and from a practical standpoint,
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  Speaker 1: meal timing does seem to matter and it doesn't mean
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  Speaker 1: that everybody needs to follow the exact same rule. Some
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  Speaker 1: people may benefit from meeting closer to bad time, especially
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  Speaker 1: if it helps with hunger or sleep bondset, or if
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  Speaker 1: they are trying to build or maintained muscle they want
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  Speaker 1: to have protein close to bad time.
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  Speaker 2: But what this study really.
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  Speaker 1: Suggests is that if you want to improve your sleep,
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  Speaker 1: it's worth experimenting. Try leaning into more fruit, vegetables and
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  Speaker 1: fiber rich foods during the day, Maybe keep your evening
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  Speaker 1: meal a little bit lighter and have a heavier lunch
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  Speaker 1: and breakfast rather than backloading all your calories, and see
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  Speaker 1: how your body responds, because ultimately, it's about finding what
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  Speaker 1: works for you.
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  Speaker 2: So that's it for this week, folks, Catch you next time.