Optimising Sleep: Avoiding Eating Before Bed and Limiting Blue Light Exposure

Are you one of the many individuals who have trouble sleeping? You lay in bed for hours but can’t seem to fall asleep? Guess what, You are not alone.

In today's time, the things we are exposed to have disrupted our healthy lifestyle. One example is getting a good night's sleep. Having an efficient sleeping schedule has become more challenging than ever.

Many factors contribute to this, but the two key factors that disrupt your sleep are eating before bedtime and exposure to blue light from screens. This blog explains the science behind these factors for not letting you get better sleep. By understanding their negative effects, you will have a choice to improve your sleep schedule and, hence, your overall wellbeing.

Consuming food before bedtime leads to high glucose levels in your body, which then inhibits the production of a hormone named melatonin. This hormone plays an important role in regulating the sleep-wake cycle. As you grow older, melatonin starts dropping; hence, we sleep less than children.

Therefore, eating right before bedtime fluctuates your glucose levels, which effects the body’s ability to produce melatonin effectively, thus disrupting your sleep. Also, when you ingest food right before bedtime, your body starts focusing on digesting it rather than preparing for rest, making it harder for you to sleep. So, to get a good night's sleep, control your midnight cravings and instead have a fixed dinner time approximately two hours before bedtime.

The other factor is exposure to the blue light that emits from your screens. It has become routine to lay down in bed after a busy day and catch up by scrolling on your mobiles or using your laptop, either for work or a fun movie night. These things may seem harmless, but they are disrupting nature's course. The blue light from your electronics suppresses the production of melatonin.

Melatonin is released in darkness, but when you use your mobiles or laptops at night, the brain gets the signal that it is still daytime, thus not producing enough melatonin. This disruption does not let you sleep properly. So, instead of messing with your body’s function, you should limit screen time before bed so that your brain doesn’t get tricked.

By changing these simple habits, you can be one step closer to your overall health and wellbeing. Getting quality sleep will give your brain a chance to rest and recharge and make you active for the next day. So, optimize your sleep by avoiding eating right before bedtime and limiting your screen time at night.