Which foods help you sleep? Cookbook is out to break cycle of poor diet, poor-quality rest

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Anyone who has ever suffered in bed after eating three slices of pizza could surmise there is some relationship between food and sleep quality.

For Marie-Pierre St-Onge, the director of Columbia University’s Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research in the US state of New York, years of studying the relationship confirmed it.

Data from large-scale population studies shows that eating a lot of saturated fat and simple carbohydrates made it harder to get deep, restorative sleep, she says.

“It’s a cycle of having poor sleep leading to poor dietary choices, and lower dietary quality that further propels poor sleep,” St-Onge says.