Want to sleep better? Consider eating more items from a pair of food groups most Americans roundly ignore.
Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables throughout the day is associated with sleeping more soundly at night, according to a recent study from researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine and Columbia University.
The findings were published in Sleep Health: The Journal of the National Sleep Foundation.
In the study, young adults used an app to log their food consumption each day. They also wore a wrist device that monitored their sleep patterns at night.
The researchers then created an index to measure what’s known as “sleep fragmentation” based on how frequently the participants woke up or moved from deep sleep to light sleep during the night.
On the days that the participants ate more fruits and vegetables, they logged deeper, more uninterrupted sleep that night. Eating healthy carbohydrates such as whole grains had the same effect.
The researchers estimate that people who eat the recommended amounts of produce each day could see a sleep quality boost of 16%, compared with people who eat no fruits and vegetables.
It’s the first study to connect dietary choices in a day to sleep quality in the same night. In a summary of the findings, Dr. Esra Tasali — director of the UChicago Sleep Center and co-author of the study — said a 16% increase in sleep quality represents a “highly significant difference.”
Tasali also stated, “It’s remarkable that such a meaningful change could be observed within less than 24 hours.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that just 9% of adults get enough vegetables and 12% get enough fruit. Men, young adults and people with lower incomes are especially likely to miss the mark.
Adult women need a minimum of 1½ cups of fruit and 2½ cups of vegetables each day, and adult men need a minimum of 2 cups of fruit and 3½ cups of vegetables each day, according to the CDC.
The few vegetables Americans do eat tend to be consumed during dinner. If you want to get more vegetables into your diet, the CDC suggests adding them to lunch. The agency also says that an easy way to get more fruit into your diet is to add it to breakfast.
If you are ready to start building toward more produce each day, it might help to know that the American Heart Association estimates that 1 cup of produce is equivalent to:
- Eight large strawberries
- One large bell pepper
- One medium potato
- 22 grapes
- Two medium carrots or 12 baby carrots
- One medium apple, orange, pear, peach, grapefruit or nectarine
Find out how you can save on produce by growing it at home in “How to Start a Vegetable Garden (That Won’t Overwhelm You).”
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