Oh no?! Does garlic disrupt your sleep?
Had a bad night? As in: slept restlessly and therefore had strange dreams, and also suffered from a rumbling stomach? Maybe those few cloves of garlic in last night’s dinner had something to do with it…
Look, if part of that evening also involved sitting on a terrace, slurring your words, and then grabbing an excellent shoarma sandwich with extra garlic sauce on the way home, then the mystery is quickly solved. But what if you kept things very calm otherwise and simply whipped up a healthy meal like this sticky salmon with honey and garlic, and still tossed and turned all night? In AD, sleep therapist Dr. Winni Hofman and nutritionist Rasp Moorman responded to the question of whether eating garlic could be the cause of a poor night’s sleep.
Garlic = Coffee?
Journalist Laura Obdeijn asked whether there is a connection, because she had increasingly often heard that people preferred not to have garlic in their food because of possible disrupted sleep later on. Moorman said that research is being conducted into whether garlic, like coffee, has an activating effect, but that there are not yet any explanations. Hofman indicated that some people may sleep restlessly or even wake up if their stomach and intestines were to become irritated by garlic. But there are still no very conclusive research results.
Tell me it isn’t so
Never heard of it, and certainly never experienced it yourself? Be glad! Fortunately, garlic does not have this effect on everyone, just as countless people can still enjoy an espresso in the evening without a problem. That does not change the fact that what and when you eat in the evening can indeed affect your sleep. I can’t manage this (think chicken with 40 cloves of garlic), but do you know the saying “Eat breakfast like an emperor, lunch like a king, and dinner like a beggar”? A heavy, fatty meal indeed gives your body a great deal to do during the night. But if you want to be sure whether your bad night is due to the garlic (and you do not have a clearly diagnosed garlic allergy), there is nothing else for it but to leave those cloves out for a while and test it yourself…
Also read:
- Useful to learn: how to chop garlic step by step
- How long can you store garlic?
- Chopped garlic in a jar: gold or gross?
