Food is a timing signal for your body clock, just like light. What and when you eat in the evening shows up in your sleep graph the same night.
Worth eating
Kiwis (two, an hour before bed) and tart cherries have small trials behind them. A light dinner built on protein and complex carbs — fish, rice, greens — keeps blood sugar flat through the night. Chamomile or lemon-balm tea is a solid ritual with a mild measurable effect.
Worth skipping
Alcohol fragments the second half of the night even in 'one glass' doses. Heavy, fatty or spicy meals within three hours of bed raise core temperature and reflux risk. And caffeine hides in chocolate, cola and green tea long after your last coffee.
Where supplements fit
If your diet is short on magnesium — little greens, nuts or whole grains — an evening glycinate dose is the best-studied gap-filler. Treat it as a complement to dinner, not a replacement for it.
This article is for information only and is not medical advice. If insomnia lasts longer than three weeks, see a doctor.
