The Best Breakfast for a Good Night’s Sleep

By Danielle Pope

The Best Breakfast for a Good Night’s Sleep
Start your day the right way, and set yourself up for a good night’s sleep

Trouble sleeping? The answer could lie in what you ate (or didn’t eat) for breakfast.

Experts are now saying that eating a simple breakfast of eight almonds and two dates within 30 minutes of waking, is the perfect breakfast for a good night’s sleep.

Dr Nerina Ramlakhan is a sleep therapist and the author of Tired but Wired: How to Overcome Your Sleep Problems. Dr Ramlakhan says that this breakfast combination offers between 150 to 200 calories, and helps the body to produce the sleep hormone, melatonin later in the evening.

She says that having a balanced breakfast is far more conducive for better sleep habits later that night, than skipping the meal. “It is as simple as this, if you don’t breakfast, your body believes it is living in famine and produces stress hormones that are not conducive to restful sleep,” she said. “But by eating breakfast, you’re letting your body know there is enough food and you are living in safety, which in turn switches on your sleep, energy systems.”

How much sleep we need differs between people, but the current consensus is that adults need around seven to nine hours. A recent report by Access Economics estimated that more than 1.2 million Australians experience sleep disorders, while a recent survey of almost 1600 people aged between 25-74 found that a 1/3 reported not getting enough sleep.

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