Science Says How You Sleep Affects How You Eat, and Vice Versa: the Virtuous (and Vicious) Cycle of Sleep and Diet

You probably wish you got more sleep, if only for the performance benefits. A study published in Sleep says if you only sleep for five to six hours you’re 19 percent less productive than people who regularly sleep for seven to eight hours, and if you only sleep five hours a night you’re nearly 30 percent less productive.

That seems especially true for aspiring entrepreneurs: a study published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice found that lack of sleep makes people more likely to start a business on impulse or whim rather than on a solid, well-considered idea. More broadly, a study published in Journal of Business Venturing found that lack of sleep causes you to come up with worse ideas, and to think those bad ideas are actually good ones. ​

But if you’re also hoping to eat better, getting enough sleep is crucial. Research shows the two create a vicious circle: lack of sleep leads to a poorer diet, and a poorer diet leads to lack of sleep.

That premise probably resonates, but here’s some science to back it up. A study published in Sleep found that reduced sleep leads to a significant increase in eating. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found lack of sleep causes increased activity in your brain’s reward centers specific to food. Lack of sleep also change some of the hormones that signal when you’re full.

So, yeah: If you don’t get enough sleep, your diet almost surely suffers, as anyone who stays up late and finds themselves craving junk food the next day can attest. 

But then there’s this: A study published in Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that diet has an effect on the quality and amount of sleep you get: Eating more fiber — whole grains, beans, certain vegetables and fruits, etc. — and less sugar and saturated fat results in better sleep at night. 

And if you adopt the Mediterranean diet (lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish, poultry) a 2018 Sleep study indicates you’ll be one-third as likely to suffer from insomnia and nearly 1.5 times more likely to get a good night’s sleep. 

Add it all up, and whether you start with the chicken or the egg, the cycle is the same. Don’t get enough sleep and you’re likely to eat more poorly, which makes it harder for you to get more sleep, and therefore more likely to eat poorly. The same is true if you eat poorly; getting enough sleep is harder, which will make it harder to eat healthier and to get enough sleep.

What about supplements, you ask? Plenty of people take melatonin to help them fall asleep. And that does work; a study published in Sleep Medicine Reviews found that people who take melatonin supplements tend to fall asleep around four minutes faster than those who don’t.

Which is great… except a more recent study found that maintaining a Mediterranean diet cut the time to fall asleep by 12 minutes, and led to significantly better sleep quality.  

In short, supplements help.

But lifestyle changes help more. 

So turn your diet and sleep into a virtuous rather than vicious cycle. Tonight, pick a time you will go to bed. Not go to sleep (because that’s harder to control), but go to bed. See bedtime not as the time you will definitely fall asleep, but the earliest time you  go to sleep. (Unless you’re totally exhausted, you won’t fall asleep right away.)

Then just relax. Let your mind wander. Don’t think about going to sleep. Don’t to go to sleep. Just chill. If you want, try the Military Method to fall asleep faster. Or the 4-7-8 Method. Or spend 5 minutes writing tomorrow’s to-do list. All are science-backed ways to fall asleep faster.

And if it takes you a long time to fall asleep, that’s okay. Don’t take a nap the next day. Just go to bed at the same time. Again, see it as bed time, not sleep time, and just chill.

In time, your body (and more importantly, your mind) will start to adapt. You’ll start to get more and better, sleep.

Especially if you focus on eating healthier as well, because when you do that, you’ll naturally start to sleep better.

Which will make it a lot easier to keep eating healthier.

And turn sleep and diet into a virtuous cycle.