It has been proven: eating cheese before bed contributes to a better night’s sleep
Cheese is addictive (yes, really!) delicious. Ideally, we end every dinner with cheese-dessert-cheese and spend every weekend enjoying cheese fondue. But besides being delicious, cheese also helps prevent the decline of our memory, attention and concentration. And now it turns out that cheese also helps you sleep better. What a wonder product cheese is!
There are plenty of folk tales claiming that eating cheese before bed has negative effects on our night’s sleep. It is said to cause stomach and intestinal problems, nightmares and insomnia. But there is good news: there is hardly any scientific evidence for this. On the other hand, there is evidence that it does help you sleep well. Hooray!
The cheese study
Researchers from the British Cheese Board examined insomnia versus cheese a number of years ago to see whether there was indeed a connection between the two. And there wasn’t. In fact, the study revealed the opposite. The majority of people who took part in the study said they had slept exceptionally well after eating cheese.
How it works
The reason cheese helps you sleep better instead of keeping you awake all night is the substance tryptophan, which promotes the production of serotonin, needed to produce the sleep hormone melatonin. Cheese also contains a lot of calcium, which is said to help combat stress—and can therefore make it easier for you to fall asleep.
Sweet dreams are made of cheese
Some cheeses contain more tryptophan than others. Low-fat cheeses in particular have a high tryptophan content. This means you might be better off leaving the wedges of brie, 48+ cheese and Roquefort off the cheeseboard and choosing cheeses such as cottage cheese, mozzarella, 10+ cheese and soft goat’s cheese, so you can then fall asleep like a block of cheese.
Also read:
- Fromage Fort is the delicious solution for all those leftover bits of cheese
- Is a grilled cheese sandwich as healthy as a slice of bread with cheese?
- You’ve been grating your cheese incorrectly your entire life
