6 Foods to Help You Sleep

A recent research has found that what a person includes in his/her diet greatly affects the quality of sleep that he or she gets. More than that, the kind of food that a person eats also helps him or her sleep faster.

"Our main finding was that diet quality influenced sleep quality," said study leader Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, assistant professor in the department of medicine and Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center.

While they found that the kind of food eaten affects the quality of sleep, another study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has found that getting enough amount of sleep every night helps to burn calories while you're awake by day. In fact, Latinos Health previously reported that those who had enough sleep burned calories even while inactive.

Are you excited to get those much-needed and very helpful Z's? Here are six snackable food items that you can chomp on to help you get to dreamland.

Walnuts

Walnuts, according to the Reader's Digest, are a great source of tryptophan. It's an amino acid that helps in the production of serotonin and the sleep-enhancing hormone melatonin, which helps set your wake-sleep cycles.

Try adding walnuts to your baked goods or, if you want, just chew on them as they are. They're pretty good on their own too.

Almonds

Almonds are rich in the mineral magnesium, which is needed for good quality sleep. RD reported that a study published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine found that low levels of magnesium make it hard for the body to stay asleep. So, load up on almonds!

Tuna

Tuna, along with other fish such as halibut and salmon, have high contents of vitamin B6, which is needed by the body in the production of melatonin and serotonin.

Tuna also contains protein, which will help you burn fat while you sleep. Yum!

Cheese

The calcium found in your favorite cheese, as well as other dairy products such as yogurt and milk, help the brain in using tryptophan to produce melatonin.

Pair cheese with crackers or put them in that grilled tuna sandwich.

Cereal

The National Sleep Foundation shared that having a bowl of cereals before bedtime will help you get a good night's sleep. It will even be better if coupled with milk because of the calcium content the dairy product has.

Chamomile Tea

RD stated that a fragrant cup of freshly seeped chamomile tea will really help you sleep. Research has found that chamomile tea is associated with glycine, a chemical that acts like a mild sedative, and helps relax nerves and muscles.