Five Foods that Help You Sleep
Having trouble sleeping? Check out these five foods that can help you sleep at night:
- Cherries. Fresh and dried cherries are one of the only natural food sources of melatonin, the chemical that controls your body’s internal clock to sleep.
- Bananas. Potassium and magnesium are natural muscle relaxants, and bananas are a good source of both. They also contain amino acid L-tryptophan, which gets converted to 5-HTP in the brain. The 5-HTP in turn is converted to serotonin (a relaxing neurotransmitter) and melatonin.
- Toast. Carbohydrate-rich foods trigger insulin production, which induces sleep by speeding up the release of tryptophan and serotonin, two brain chemicals that relax you and send you to sleep.
- Oatmeal. Like toast, a bowl of oatmeal triggers a rise in blood sugar, which in turn triggers insulin production and the release of sleep-inducing brain chemicals. Oats are also rich in melatonin, which many people take as a sleep aid.
- Warm milk. Like bananas, milk contains the amino acid L-tryptophan, which turns to 5-HTP and releases relaxing serotonin. It’s also high in calcium, which promotes sleep.
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