5 Reasons Oatmeal Is Good For Your Sleep

Did you know that oatmeal can help you sleep better? Better sleep, in turn, is associated with better health and more energy. This way you will see that you can spend your days much more productively!

With that in mind, we have a few questions for you:  Do you always sleep eight hours a night? Or do you often wake up during the night? Do you often feel like you’re not even rested when it’s morning?

If so, it’s time to do something about it. You can do that by making some changes and taking a simple remedy an hour before going to bed: a bowl of warm oatmeal.

We discuss the 5 reasons why…

1. Oatmeal for dinner, a good choice

Enjoying a restorative, deep sleep depends on many things. Two of them are very specific: when you eat your dinner and what your last meal of the day contains.

Here’s an interesting fact to keep in mind: Your liver performs its detoxification between 1 AM and 3 AM. 

Eating late or eating a heavy meal will hinder the efficiency of this job and wake you up. You should eat your dinner between 7 and 9 PM at the latest.

Oatmeal is a good choice to include in your dinner when it comes to your health and a good night’s sleep. It contains just the right nutrients.

It will help you maintain balanced glucose levels,  which is especially good for your last hours of the day.

Also, if you want to rest, don’t forget: it’s not a good idea to eat red meat in the evening. Why? Red meat contains stimuli such as hypoxanthine.  Hence it is better to go for fish or grains.

2. It contains a lot of melatonin and vitamin D

Oatmeal is a natural source of melatonin, a component that regulates your sleep/wake cycle.

It’s not that it instantly puts you to sleep like a sleeping pill would. What it does do  is adjust your cycle so that you feel sleepy when it gets dark.

It helps you regulate this cycle thanks to the melatonin and vitamin D it contains. It also helps you to deal with:

• The impact of migraines;
• Chronic fatigue;
• Irritable bowel syndrome;
• Bone decalcification (osteopenia or osteoporosis).

To enhance the benefits, it  is smart to look for oatmeal with extra vitamin D in your supermarket. That way, your serotonin production increases, which also helps you fall asleep.

3. Oatmeal and Vitamin B Complex

B complex vitamins play several important roles in your body. The most important has to do with the proper functioning of your nervous system.

• Oatmeal is very rich in vitamin B6, or pyridoxine. This is necessary to convert the energy in food into glucose and to digest fats and proteins.
• Vitamin B3 helps to increase tryptophan production. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that promotes relaxation and sleep.

If you are deficient in any of those vitamins, you will feel the effects. The most common of these are physical fatigue and insomnia.

Discover: Effective remedies for insomnia

4. It helps you fight anxiety and sleep better

Oatmeal contains avenine and trigonelline. These are two types of prolamines (plant proteins).

These  help to reduce anxiety, nervousness and the mental and physical irritation  that often builds up during the day. This often prevents you from falling into a deep, sound sleep.

However, we should point out that many people with celiac disease are allergic to this type of vegetable protein .  So in that case it is better to avoid oatmeal.

5. Say goodbye to stress

The biggest causes of insomnia are chronic anxiety and stress. These emotional processes increase your adrenaline levels.

They also  gradually release other hormones that cause muscle tension, stress and fatigue.

Consuming oatmeal regularly will help you normalize the levels of these stress-related hormones.

This will balance your cortisol levels and support your nervous system. All thanks to the high levels of vitamin B complex in oatmeal!

In addition , it encourages your internal homeostasis (balance), relaxes you, promotes good digestion and promotes good liver health. All of this will give you a deeper, more restful night’s sleep.

However, keep in mind: take this bowl of oatmeal  one to two hours before bed every day to reap the benefits. Plus, eat it hot!