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When creating an ideal sleeping environment, you might think of lighting, temperature and sound — but what about food?

What you eat during the day can have a surprising impact on how well you sleep at night, according to experts.

“Food choice is an essential consideration for ensuring good sleep quality. Some types of food promote sleep while others may cause sleep disruption,” Dr. Chelsie Rohrscheib, head sleep expert at Wesper, a sleep analysis company in New York, told Fox News Digital.

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Here’s what to know. 

Signs that food is interfering with sleep

If after eating you’re struggling to fall asleep, waking up often during the night or experiencing heartburn, acid reflux or indigestion, your food choices could be the culprit, according to Dr. Raj Dasgupta, chief medical adviser at Sleepopolis in California.

Other warning signs include experiencing restlessness or stomach discomfort, needing more frequent bathroom breaks at night, or waking up feeling groggy or unrested.

“Having intense dreams or nightmares or noticing changes in your usual sleep routine” are other indications that food could be interfering with sleep, Dasgupta said.

“Paying attention to these cues can help you figure out if certain foods or drinks are messing with your sleep quality, so you can make adjustments as needed for better rest,” he said.

Best foods to eat for quality sleep

Foods that encourage better sleep include meals with a good amount of lean protein, meals that are high in fiber, and meals that are rich in complex carbohydrates, according to Rohrscheib.

“This food combination keeps us feeling full and satisfied throughout the night and prevents us from waking up from hunger,” she said. 

“Having intense dreams or nightmares or noticing changes in your usual sleep routine” are other indications that food choices could be interfering with sleep, an expert said. (iStock)

“It also reduces the risk of indigestion and heartburn.” 

Foods containing dairy are especially beneficial, she said, because they contain tryptophan, an amino acid that is essential for the production of serotonin and melatonin, two chemicals needed for sleep.

“Food choice is an essential consideration for ensuring good sleep quality.”

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Bananas can also help promote sleep, according to Dasgupta.

“They contain magnesium and tryptophan, which can help you relax and boost production of sleep-inducing hormones,” he told Fox News Digital. 

Almonds provide magnesium for muscle relaxation and also contain protein and healthy fats to keep blood sugar levels stable, said an expert.  (iStock)

Almonds also provide magnesium for muscle relaxation; they contain protein and healthy fats to keep blood sugar levels stable, he said. 

“Cherries contain natural melatonin, potentially helping to regulate your sleep-wake cycles,” Dasgupta said.

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Oatmeal is also a sleep-friendly food. 

“Its complex carbohydrates increase serotonin levels, while its melatonin content helps to regulate sleep,” said Dasgupta.

As we all hear around Thanksgiving time, turkey is rich in tryptophan, facilitating the production of serotonin and melatonin, Dasgupta noted. 

Bananas can help with quality sleep because they contain magnesium and tryptophan, which can promote relaxation, an expert said. (iStock)

“Kiwi is loaded with antioxidants, vitamins and serotonin, all of which support sleep pattern regulation,” he said.

Dasgupta also recommends eating Greek yogurt to promote improved sleep, as its calcium content assists in the body’s use of tryptophan for melatonin production, while its protein helps maintain blood sugar levels.

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“Finally, warm milk, with its tryptophan content and comforting warmth, can help you relax” for a good night’s sleep, he said. 

Those who are lactose-intolerant can opt for warm almond milk.

Foods that can disrupt sleep

Some foods are more likely to cause indigestion and heartburn, which makes it difficult to fall asleep and maintain sleep, according to Rohrscheib.

“This includes foods with high fat or acid content, foods containing caffeine, or spicy foods,” she said.

Dasgupta agreed that eating heavy or spicy foods ahead of bedtime can cause stomach discomfort, heartburn and acid reflux, which can make it harder to settle down comfortably. 

Eating heavy or spicy foods can cause stomach discomfort, heartburn and acid reflux, which can make it harder to settle down comfortably for the night, an expert said. (iStock)

“Greasy or heavy meals take longer to digest, which can leave you feeling uncomfortable and disrupt your sleep,” he advised. 

Caffeine is also a common culprit in sleep disruption — experts recommend avoiding it in the hours leading up to bedtime.

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“Any food containing caffeine, even small amounts, should be avoided to prevent sleep disruption,” Rohrscheib said. “This includes coffee, some teas, sodas, energy drinks and some chocolates.”

It’s best to abstain from alcohol as well, Dasgupta said. “While it might seem like a nightcap, it messes with your sleep cycles, leading to worse sleep quality.”

Caffeine is also a common culprit in sleep disruption — experts recommend avoiding it in the hours leading up to bedtime. (iStock)

Highly processed foods and foods containing high amounts of sugar cause a quick spike in glucose levels and increase the risk of a “blood sugar crash,” also known as hypoglycemia, Rohrscheib warned. 

“When we’re hypoglycemic, our brain will attempt to wake us up to eat more food to normalize our blood glucose levels,” she said. “Thus, these foods should be avoided before bedtime.”

“Consuming too much and making yourself over-full is likely to make you uncomfortable and cause poor sleep quality.”

“Lastly, processed or junk foods, loaded with additives and unhealthy fats, can throw off your sleep patterns,” Dasgupta added.

Portion size is also a factor in sleep quality, both experts agreed.

“Regardless of the type of meal you eat, consuming too much and making yourself over-full is likely to make you uncomfortable and cause poor sleep quality,” Rohrscheib said. 

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.

• The World Health Organization and 500 experts have established a consensus on the definition of airborne diseases.
• The groups are aiming to prevent confusion similar to that experienced during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The WHO released a document outlining the definition, marking a step toward improving prevention of diseases transmitted through the air.

The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.

The Geneva-based U.N. health agency released a technical document on the topic on Thursday. It said it was the first step towards working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats.

The document concludes that the descriptor “through the air” can be used for infectious diseases where the main type of transmission involves the pathogen traveling through the air or being suspended in the air, in line with other terms such as “waterborne” diseases, which are understood across disciplines and by the public.

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Almost 500 experts contributed to the definition, including physicists, public health professionals and engineers, many of whom disagreed bitterly over the topic in the past.

Agencies have historically required high levels of proof before calling diseases airborne, which required very stringent containment measures; the new definition says the risk of exposure and severity of disease should also be considered.

Past disagreements also centered around whether infectious particles were “droplets” or “aerosols” based on size, which the new definition moves away from.

During the early days of COVID in 2020, around 200 aerosol scientists publicly complained that the WHO had failed to warn people of the risk that the virus could spread through the air. This led to an overemphasis on measures like handwashing to stop the virus, rather than focusing on ventilation, they said.

By July 2020, the agency said there was “evidence emerging” of airborne spread, but its then chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan – who began the process to get a definition – later said the WHO should have been more forceful “much earlier”.

Her successor, Jeremy Farrar, said in an interview that the new definition was about more than COVID, but he added that at the beginning of the pandemic there was a lack of evidence available and experts including the WHO acted in “good faith”. At that time, he was head of the Wellcome Trust charity and advised the British government on the pandemic.

Farrar said getting the definition agreed among experts from all disciplines would allow discussions to begin about issues such as ventilation in many different settings, from hospitals to schools.

He compared it to the realization that blood-borne viruses like HIV or hepatitis B could be spread by medics not wearing gloves during procedures.

“When I started out, medical students, nurses, doctors, none of us wore gloves to take blood,” he told Reuters. “Now it is unthinkable that you wouldn’t wear gloves. But that came because everyone agreed on what the issue was, they agreed on the terminology… [The change in practice] came later.”