Foods that Improve Sleep Quality?

Seems like it should also work for those mid-night or too-early-in-the-morning wake-ups when one is the most vulnerable & intrusive thoughts are the most difficult to fight off…

That’s when I need it. When I get up at 4:30am to make sure the fire is still burning, as evolution has taught me.

Interesting. Sounds like a wordle way of counting sheep.

Incidentally, I had a great night’s sleep last night. The only attribution I’ll suggest is taking the entire day off from the weight room and chores.

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I am a night owl by nature, and I’ve never found waking up between 6-8am easy at any point in my life. I suspect I have mild sleep apnea too, and my various allergies and sinus issues didn’t help. I do have a watch that records my sleep and was often not getting much deep sleep at night.

I’ve made an effort to switch to drinking more tea. While I don’t cut out coffee entirely, I do have certain days when I’m only drinking tea. This seems to correspond to my sleep quality improving. Where I barely got 40 mins of deep sleep before (with an occasional night having more than 1hr in deep sleep), I notice I am getting 1-1.5hrs most nights now. I’m still tired when I wake up and I hate the alarm, but I’m not as groggy in the morning. I also sometimes drink tea (full caffeine) right up to bed time and it doesn’t pose an issue.

I don’t snack or eat after 8 or 8:30pm and that has helped. I’ve always read that hard exercising too close to bed time is not good because your heart rate and your adrenaline is pumping. You want to be in a relaxed state, and I think that tea does that to me, despite the caffeine. For me it’s not so much what I eat, but actually not eating that appears to have helped more.

Non-food: I now have an adjustable bed frame kept at a slight incline. This has helped with sinus issues. I also take allergy meds daily to cut down on allergy flair ups that blocked breathing.

I finally learned to quit drinking caffeine after about 2 pm… I’ll wwear a path in the tile with the pacing.

Funny — tea makes me pee about 10x more often than coffee, so that’s out for a good night’s sleep. I also don’t really like tea.

Thankfully, caffeine doesn’t affect my sleep.

In college I could mainline coffee 24/7 and sleep like a baby…

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I could mainline a lot of things when I was in college, but you kind of lose that vital skill as you age.

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I used to drink it by the gallon in HS, and my mom made it so strong the spoon would stand up in the cup.

I ended up being so jittery we both moved away from it during the day (morning cuppa was still happening, of course) & went through a yearlong phase of drinking tea instead.

While I enjoyed the various flavors, I did not enjoy the incessant need to pee.

I will also forever continue to be amazed by just how cold both tea and coffee get when they cool: not just room temp, but decidedly colder.

Any physicists around to explain that one?

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Thermal conductivity

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I figured there was an explanation. Fascinating stuff, fo’ sho’.

Add me to that list, as well.

Too much tea definitely means constant bathroom trips for me too. Iced tea in particular, but usually in the evenings, I’m slowly sipping about a cup to a cup and a half of tea total. I use a gaiwan and a Chinese tea cup that is smaller than Western cups. I’m picky about my tea - no herbal, and whole leaf only. I grew up on cheaper to average Chinese teas, and I’ve only in recent years splurged on good tea.

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Yeah, me too. I’d pop a few Vivarin, work a graveyard shift, and be off to morning classes.

Not. Any. More…

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And if you didnt go to class still wearing a wristband and the clothes you wore out the night before…

…i still like going out, but if I tried doing that now, Im pretty sure I might unalive …

I remembering driving from Arkansas to Arizona (26 hours straight). I was eating Vivarin like they were candy. When I finally got to my destination, I tried to lay down and go to sleep, but couldn’t. I felt like I was hovering above the bed. I know I was laying down but it didn’t feel like it.

I’ll never do that again…