How long before bed should you eat a banana?

Updated date: 08/26/2023 06:13:27

Bananas are a fruit that many people love and choose to eat at night, so how long before going to bed should you eat bananas?

Eating bananas before bed helps you sleep better

According to experts, bananas are a healthy fruit that you can eat at any time of the day, so how long before going to bed should you eat bananas?

How long before bed should you eat a banana?

Thanh Nien newspaper quoted the website The Healthy citing information from a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, saying that bananas are a food that contains both tryptophan and magnesium, so they are an ideal choice to eat 2-3 hours before going to bed.

What is the effect of eating bananas before going to bed?

According to the Food Data Center, United States Department of Agriculture , bananas contain several nutrients that can improve sleep quality and help the body feel more relaxed.

Magnesium

One medium-sized banana, weighing 126g, contains 34mg of magnesium, equivalent to 8% of the daily magnesium requirement.

Magnesium can improve sleep quality in a number of ways. First, magnesium helps maintain normal circadian cycles, including sleep and wake times. Additionally, studies have shown that supplementing with 500 mg of magnesium daily can help the body increase melatonin production and reduce levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

Melatonin is a hormone produced during the sleep cycle that helps you sleep better and deeper.

A study published in the journal Nutrients in 2019 found that one of the signs of magnesium deficiency is getting less than 5 hours of sleep.

Therefore, if you eat a banana before going to bed, you can improve the quality of your sleep thanks to the effects of magnesium. In addition to bananas, avocados, nuts, and cereals are also rich sources of magnesium.

Tryptophan

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that the body cannot produce and must be supplemented from the daily diet. Bananas contain a lot of tryptophan.

A study published in the journal Nutrients in 2020 demonstrated that foods containing tryptophan help improve sleep, including increasing sleep duration and quality, helping the body fall asleep faster and waking up less at night.

This effect is achieved because tryptophan is converted into serotonin after entering the brain. Serotonin is a hormone that regulates sleep by acting as a precursor to melatonin.

Carbs

Evidence shows that carb-rich foods help tryptophan enter the brain to be converted into serotonin and melatonin more quickly and efficiently. Carbs also help you fall asleep faster.

Potassium

Low potassium levels can disrupt sleep in people with high blood pressure. Potassium also helps improve sleep quality by reducing nighttime leg cramps.

In addition to containing nutrients that are beneficial for sleep, bananas also help improve sleep quality by aiding digestion and helping you feel full longer.

Studies show that pectin can increase feelings of fullness by slowing digestion.

Therefore, eating a banana before bedtime can help solve sleep problems and one of them is hunger.

Eating bananas before going to bed is a good habit. Let's maintain this habit regularly, everyone.

According to HA AN (Synthesis) / VTC News

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