# Meal timing and sleep

Big late meals hurt sleep efficiency; finish ≥ 3 h before bed.



## Takeaways

- Last big meal ≥ 3 h before bed.

- Fibre up, late sugar down.

- Test it, don't assume it.



Food is a circadian and arousal signal. Late, large, fatty meals correlate with longer sleep onset and lower efficiency; higher fibre and lower sugar/saturated fat predict deeper sleep. Galpin: 'Are you eating too late?' is one of the first variables to test.

Track first- and last-meal times; SleepShred computes the meal-to-bed gap and compares late-meal nights with the rest.



## Sources

- The health impact of nighttime eating: old and new perspectives (Kinsey AW, Ormsbee MJ, 2015)

- Relationship between food intake and sleep pattern in healthy individuals (Crispim CA, Zimberg IZ, dos Reis BG, Diniz RM, Tufik S, de Mello MT, 2011)

- Effects of diet on sleep quality (St-Onge MP, Mikic A, Pietrolungo CE, 2016)

- A smartphone app reveals erratic diurnal eating patterns in humans that can be modulated for health benefits (Gill S, Panda S, 2015)

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Educational summary of published research, not medical advice. Screening scores are not diagnoses. If a score is elevated or you feel unwell, talk to a clinician.

SleepShred for iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6802040541