What we eat is directly linked to how we sleep. Some foods make sleep worse. Research led by Marie-Pierre St-Onge, director of Columbia University’s Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research, shows that people who consume more saturated fat—mainly from processed snacks and fast food—spend less time in deep sleep. And diets high in sugar and refined carbohydrates, such as white bread and pasta, tend to make sleep more fragmented.
In the book Eat Better, Sleep Better (Simon Element), co-written with Saveur editor Kat Craddock, St-Onge lays out her findings in detail and argues for structuring your diet to support restorative nights. Lamb, tofu, and lentils, for instance, contain tryptophan—an essential amino acid that kick-starts the production of melatonin and serotonin, both crucial for sleep. Magnesium, zinc, and vitamin B6 are needed to synthesize tryptophan, so she also recommends adding foods rich in these nutrients—chia seeds, walnuts, and oysters.
The book includes lists of ingredients that help with falling asleep, including so-called “power” foods that combine several beneficial components at once. Brown rice, for example, contains tryptophan, melatonin, vitamin B6, magnesium, and zinc, along with fiber and complex carbohydrates that improve the body’s absorption of tryptophan. Other foods with similar effects include bananas, walnuts, and barley. “They’re easy to fold into familiar dishes,” St-Onge notes—for instance, swapping barley for rice in a risotto, or adding kale to a soup, since it contains folate and B6.
A separate section is devoted to recipes designed specifically for sleep—from lemon turkey soup and lamb stew to morning muffins made with sunflower seeds rich in tryptophan, banana packed with B6 and magnesium, and chocolate, which stimulates serotonin production. “A muffin before a workout helps sustain energy while also improving sleep,” St-Onge says.
Alongside the obvious advice—such as avoiding caffeine after 4:00 PM and limiting alcohol—St-Onge underscores the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, which has been linked to a lower risk of insomnia, as well as polyphenol-rich foods such as blueberries and ginger. They support gut health and, in turn, better sleep. She also advises increasing fruit and vegetable intake: “Five servings a day reduces sleep fragmentation by 16 percent.” In the end, this is not about miracle hacks, but a reminder that a healthy, balanced diet is the foundation of good sleep.
A new cookbook from the renowned Himalayan retreat Ananda takes a different approach, pairing modern nutrition science with the ancient principles of Ayurveda. More than 100 recipes in The Healing Plate (Roli Books) are designed to address a range of conditions and imbalances, including sleep problems. They consider not only flavor, but also how each dish aligns with a person’s energetic type, or dosha—vata, pitta, or kapha. These types are loosely associated with traits such as impulsiveness and high energy, strength and resilience, or calmness and care. As the book explains: “When vata is dominant, sleep is light, broken, delayed, or absent altogether. With excess pitta, sleep is disrupted by overheating, intense activity, deadlines, or severe stress. With excessive kapha, inertia, oversleeping, sluggishness, and heavy waking set in.”
A dedicated questionnaire can help identify your dosha, after which the “Ayurveda-guided” recipes can be tailored to your individual profile. Dishes include spinach-and-chickpea curry, cauliflower curry with black pepper, and a sleep-supporting drink made by gently simmering an unpeeled banana with ground ginger, star anise, cinnamon, and cloves.
It is not only what we eat, but when. Research by Zoe suggests that eating within two hours of bedtime reduces the share of deep sleep regardless of what you consume. “Even a healthy snack like an apple has a negative effect,” says Zoe’s chief nutritionist, Federica Amati. Her advice is straightforward: “Eat breakfast and dinner at the same time every day to support your body clock. Put the bulk of your nutrients into breakfast and lunch, and keep dinner lighter. And in the evening, cut back on fried and fatty foods, since they are more likely to trigger acid reflux.”
The relationship also runs in reverse—sleep quality shapes eating habits. After a restless night, cravings for simple sugars and refined carbohydrates intensify. “In one of my studies, participants ate about 300 more calories and consumed 33 percent more saturated fat when they did not get enough sleep, compared with periods of good sleep,” St-Onge notes. Those same foods then undermine sleep, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
An irregular schedule does damage, too. “Our research found that shifting sleep by 90 minutes—whether going to bed earlier or waking later—produced adverse changes in metabolic responses, making people hungrier and more drawn to unhealthy food, and the effect lasted seven days,” Amati says. “It was most pronounced among middle-aged people.”
As for blunting alcohol’s disruptive effects on sleep—even in small amounts—Amati points to the potential benefits of regularly consuming kefir or live yogurt alongside antioxidant-rich fruit. This is not a remedy taken after drinking, but a steady inclusion in the diet—likely because of effects on the liver and gut and a reduction in oxidative stress. “The evidence that this improves sleep after alcohol is still incomplete,” she says. “But, as is often the case in nutrition science, the signal looks promising.”