Eating This Type Of Food Before Bed Can Make Sleep More Efficient, According To Research On Nurses

The statistics don't lie: So many of us struggle to get to sleep and stay asleep, and between 10% and 30%1 of adults in the U.S. have insomnia. 

Performed by researchers in South Korea, this study investigated the effects of different bedtime meals on the sleep quality of 128 nurses working the nighttime shift.

The researchers measured sleep quality via self-reported sleep scores (using a tool called the Verran and Snyder-Halpern Sleep Scale) and objective data collected by an accelerometer. Participants also reported exactly what they ate and when on the nights they were working. 

So, what did the results show? Eating closer to bedtime was actually associated with longer total sleep time and improved sleep quality in this cohort.

If you're scratching your head reading the results above, you're not alone! This goes against what many of us have been taught—that we shouldn't eat right before bed.

We've seen a lot of past research that late-night eating is bad for our metabolism and that we should avoid certain foods before bed. For example, this study published in 2017 showed us that timing meals later in the night can cause weight gain and impair fat metabolism. 

So…what gives? It may be that late-night eating is harmful to metabolic health in some ways but benefits sleep in others. This is also an extremely preliminary study done on night shift workers, so it's possible the results don't apply to everyone.

In other words, the results of this study shouldn't spark us to start eating a giant meal before bed every night.