Can eating too little carbs be hampering sleep? While a low-carb diet is good for most people and is a great way to lose weight for those that need to lose weight. But what about those people who are underweight or too thin? Do they need more carbs? How do you tell?
I found a clue from Masterjohn when he says …
“If I experience any symptoms I associate with insufficient carbohydrate, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, peeing too much at night, or rapidly losing weight overnight, I increase my carbs.”
and he bumped his calories up to ~2600 kcal per day to keep from losing too much weight.
He said that he had sleeping issues in the past and writes about how to get better sleep in another article, the title of which pretty much sums it up: cool, dark, B6, and carbs. He writes…
“I find that getting enough fat and carbohydrate, and getting enough vitamin B6, which is easiest to get from animal foods, are most important. … In addition to getting enough fat, I also need to get enough carbohydrate.”
Add to that walking in sun in the morning, and not being hungry when sleeping helps. Although you should eat within three hours of going to bed.
I’ve previously mentioned that B6 and Zinc helps with dream recall and dream recall is indicative of good sleep. Both are needed for melatonin sythesis.
Carbs induces insulin production, which drives other amino acids into cells, making tryptophan more available to cross blood-brain barrier to help produce serotonin and melatonin.
Article on Today writes that …
“extra insulin induced drowsiness, too little caused wakefulness.”