Struggling With Sleeplessness? Experts Share Tips For A Good Night’s Sleep

Sleeplessness is associated with the drinking habits of a person, experts say. According to them, avoiding certain types of drinks late in the day can improve an individual’s sleep quality.

Several studies have suggested that caffeinated drinks, including coffee and certain types of tea, can affect sleep. Whereas, alcohol is believed to help a person fall asleep quickly. Even warm milk is believed to be helpful for a quality sleep.

However, experts suggest that it is not just enough to avoid caffeinated drinks to improve the sleep quality. Alcohol can also be harmful for a quality sleep. Also, the role played by milk in improving the sleep quality might have more to do with certain psychological aspects.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine in 2013 suggested people should stop drinking coffee and tea by late afternoon.

The effects of caffeine on an individual’s body depend on the caffeine sensitivity of that person, according to Jessica Garay Redmond, an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at Syracuse University in New York. The researcher also said there are some genetic tests to help a person determine his caffeine sensitivity.

“Things that contain caffeine are definitely going to be less-than-desirable for most people. That's not even just right before bed, but I think depending on a person's caffeine sensitivity, they may need to shut down the caffeine in their day at some point in the afternoon or certainly by dinner time so that they can then have a restful night sleep,” she told CNN.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Robbins, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health, said alcohol can also harm sleep quality. According to her, alcohol is believed to make a person fall asleep, but the reality is that this beverage traps a person into lighter stages of sleep and the benefit ends there.

“Dramatically the drink reduces the quality of your rest at night. It continues to pull you out of rapid eye movement and the deeper stages of sleep, causing you to wake up not feeling restored,” she added.

The researcher also said there is not enough study to prove the link between milk and quality of sleep. “At this point there's so much research that has looked at the effects of milk and warm milk and there's not necessarily an obvious connection that makes it a universal recommendation. A lot of researchers now suspect that it might be more sort of psychological than anything else,” she said.

But Redmond said a type of amino acid found in milk called tryptophan could help improv the quality of sleep. When this amino acid enters the body, it gets converted into brain chemicals associated with sleep called melatonin and serotonin. While melatonin regulates the body’s natural sleep and wake cycles, serotonin causes drowsiness and relaxation.

The National Sleep Foundation stated that even mild dehydration during bedtime can disrupt sleep. So, the best way to get hydrated is by drinking some water before going to bed.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that over one-third of adults in the country are not getting enough sleep at night. Their snoozing time is less than seven hours a day.