Can what you eat affect how you sleep and your body shape?
The answer might seem to be an obvious 'Yes', because almost all of us have experienced the stimulating effects of chocolate and high sugar foods before bed. The awakening feeling derived from drinking coffee, and the sleep-disrupting effects of alcohol are other examples of how foods and beverages affect our ability to get some shut-eye. Overeating and eating at the wrong times obviously piles on the pounds. Yet what links your ability to sleep, your body weight, and your mood?
A new discovery by researchers at Atlanta's Emory university indicates that melatonin, the anti-oxidant and hormone which prepares your body for sleep, can affect how your brain and nervous system grows. It can do this by acting as an anti-oxidant, neutralizing damaging free radicals, and also by activating growth circuits in the brain. If you have low melatonin levels, your thinking, learning, and memory may be impaired.
Even more important, in addition to being made in the brain, retina, and skin, melatonin is also made in your digestive tract, where it can prepare the body for sleep after being released into your circulatory system. This is vital to being happy, slim, having a handle on your stress, and sleeping well.
If you have had ongoing problem sleeping, your intestines may well be inflamed, and this inflammation can reduce intestinal cells' ability to make certain chemicals, including melatonin. The systemic reduction in melatonin production can affect the quality and length of your sleep, and how easy it is to for you to doze off. Poor sleep quality reduces your body's ability heals itself, increases high-sugar carbohydrate cravings the next day, reduces your ability to concentrate, and you get emotionally stressed more easily.
Each cell is a mini-pharmacy and can make whatever hormones and chemicals it and the body needs to live, according to Deepak Chopra M.D. Science has demonstrated that all cells possess the same DNA blueprint as other cells throughout the body. This makes it possible for any cell to manufacture the range of hormones, chemicals, and other precursors needed by your body. Your intestinals cells can, therefore, make a hormone which is used to send you to sleep. From an evolutionary and survival perspective, it also makes sense to not put all your eggs in one basket, and spread the melatonin-making machinery around the body in case you are injured or diseased.
Read part 2 because you'll discover:
- Why melatonin affect your exercise and nutrition results
- How melatonin is related to your mood
- What reduces melatonin levels
- How to increase your melatonin levels without taking melatonin supplements
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