Hey Everybody
I wanted to know what your guys thoughts were on the correlation between digestion and the amount of sleep you get. Here at T-Nation, we are always interested in digesting all we eat, so i was curious as to what you guys have found to be true. What works what doesn’t. I have read great things about probiotics and HCL, both of which i use, but for me it seems that if i don’t get a lot of sleep that my digestion suffers. All thoughts would be great!
My thought is if you have solid foods in your stomach before and while you go to sleep, your body tends to do two things.
Digest food
Repair muscle/grow
which brings me to this. If you have food in your stomach, blood will be present to help with the digestion process. The problem with this is the blood will not be in the muscle tissue providing nutrients (from the day) to repair what you broke down in your workout.
So, if the blood is two different places then both processes (digestion and muscle repair) will not be 100% efficient.
What then happens?
You cant digest the food fully (notice how you have to use the bathroom in the morning! Why is it a different mass then during the day? Cause during the day more of the food is used)you will be wasting food and also storing FAT!
you will not be able to recover from workouts properly which in turn will lead to overtraining and possible set-backs from injury.
If you do take anything before sleep it should be easily digestable, low-glycemic protien powder, Magnesium (empty stomach)
creatine.
Jon
If I don’t get enough sleep I also notice that my appetite and digestion suffer. Anything above 6 hours and my digestion is fairly decent as long as I get some vegetables and complex carbs with some of my meals.
I also find that when I am tired I get lazy about making myself eat but that is partially because I am less hungry those days.
I always eat before bed and I sleep and recover just fine.
Casein Protein is a slow-digesting protein that will aid your muscular repair through the night.
A cup or two of cottage cheese before bed and you’re good.
[quote]Artem wrote:
I always eat before bed and I sleep and recover just fine.
Casein Protein is a slow-digesting protein that will aid your muscular repair through the night.
A cup or two of cottage cheese before bed and you’re good.[/quote]
yup that’s what i do!
I normally eat meat + something fibrous before bed. Keeps me full throughout the night. Also, because I take ZMA, I noticed that cottage cheese/Metabolic Drive reduces the effect I get from it, so that’s why.
But yeah, cottage cheese is generally goooood.