2. Greasy foods
Consuming foods that are high in saturated fat such as takeaways, deep fried foods and some ready meals, as well as red and processed meats places a lot of pressure on our digestive systems.
Our gut needs to use a lot of energy to digest these foods, signalling to the brain that we’re still in daytime, awake mode, therefore disrupting our sleep patterns.
Sleep studies have found that eating a high fat meal for dinner will cause us to wake more during the night and that we’ll spend less time in restorative, dream-state sleep called REM, or rapid eye movement sleep. It can even affect the way we breathe whist we’re asleep and lead to sleep disturbances caused by acid reflux.
Summary:
High fat, greasy foods can lead to poor quality sleep if we eat them later on in the day. Studies show that those who eat a high fat diet experience more interrupted sleep than those on lower fat diets.
