Last Tuesday I woke at 2.14am, wide awake, heart going a bit fast, and I knew exactly why. I’d had a late curry from a place near Marine Parade, a glass of wine I didn’t need, and I’d eaten it all at 8.30pm while half-watching something on the laptop. Nothing dramatic happened. I just lay there for forty minutes doing that thing where you’re too awake to sleep and too tired to get up and write it down properly. I did anyway, in the scrappy notebook I keep by the bed. That’s most of how I’ve learned anything about food and sleep, honestly. Not from a textbook. From a decade of little 2am entries.
I swim most mornings at Terrigal Haven, before the tourists are up and while the water still has that flat, early stillness to it. It’s a good vantage point for noticing how you actually feel, because there’s nowhere to hide from tiredness in cold water. Some mornings I’m in and out in ten minutes, freezing and flat. Other mornings I could stay for half an hour. The difference, more often than I’d like to admit, traces back to what I ate the night before.
What actually happens between dinner and sleep
The thing I keep coming back to is that sleep isn’t a switch you flick at 10pm. It’s downstream of everything that happened in the hours before, and dinner is a big part of that. A heavy, rich meal eaten close to bedtime asks your body to keep digesting while it’s meant to be winding down. A meal that’s mostly sugar and not much else tends to give me a burst of something that isn’t quite energy and isn’t quite calm, and then a flat patch an hour or two later, right around when I’m trying to fall asleep.
I’ve noticed the opposite too. On nights I eat earlier, with more vegetables and protein and less of the rich, sauce-heavy stuff, I tend to fall asleep faster and wake up less through the night. I’m not going to tell you that’s a fixed rule, because bodies aren’t that tidy, and healthdirect’s information on sleep hygiene is honest about how many factors are involved at once — light, stress, screens, timing, not just food. But the food part is the one people talk about least, which is odd, because it’s the one you actually get three chances a day to adjust.
The gut and sleep conversation nobody has over dinner
There’s a fair bit written now about the relationship between gut health and how your body regulates itself generally, and I’ve read enough of it, and lived enough of it, to hold a soft view rather than a firm one. What I can say from my own experience is that when my gut feels unsettled, my sleep is patchier. Whether one causes the other or they’re just both reacting to the same stressful week, I genuinely don’t know, and I’d be wary of anyone who tells you they do with total certainty.
What actually helps me, in the unglamorous, repeatable way that matters more than any single insight, is eating with a bit more rhythm. Regular meal times. Fibre through the day rather than all at once. Fermented things like yoghurt or kimchi a few times a week, not as a fix, just as a habit that seems to sit well. I wrote more about this in Happy Guts, Happy Brain, and if you want the smaller, more forgiving version of gut habits that don’t require overhauling your whole pantry, Small gut health habits that actually fit real life is closer to how I actually eat on a Tuesday.
Caffeine, alcohol, and the timing nobody warns you about
I used to think my 3pm coffee was harmless because I could still fall asleep at 10. What I didn’t clock for years was that falling asleep and staying asleep are two different jobs, and caffeine has a longer tail than people think. Eatforhealth.gov.au’s guidance touches on this without being alarmist about it, which I appreciate — no scare tactics, just the plain physiology of it sitting around in your system longer than four hours.
Alcohol is the trickier one, because it does help you fall asleep, briefly, and then seems to work against the deeper stretches of the night. I’m not precious about a glass of wine with dinner. But I’ve noticed, reliably, over months of scrappy journal entries, that two glasses on a weeknight nearly always means a 2 or 3am wake-up for me. That’s not a medical claim, it’s just what my own data says, for whatever that’s worth to someone else’s body.
What I’ve started doing differently
The honest version of my evening routine isn’t romantic. Dinner earlier where I can manage it, ideally by 7. Protein and vegetables doing most of the heavy lifting, carbohydrates in there but not dominating the plate. A cup of something warm and unremarkable — chamomile, sometimes just hot water — an hour before bed, more as a signal to my body than for any particular effect I could prove. I’ll admit I went through a phase of buying magnesium powders that promised better sleep, and I reckon that was more marketing than mechanism for me personally. A short walk after dinner and a banana did more, and cost less.
On the food side, dinners that sit lightly but still feel like a proper meal have become my go-to. Miso-glazed salmon with greens is one I make often on a Tuesday because it’s quick and doesn’t leave me heavy. Moroccan-spiced vegetable tagine is a slower one for the weekend, good for using up whatever’s in the fridge, and gentle enough that I don’t regret it at 10pm.
A dinner that doesn’t fight your sleep
If I had to boil this down to one practical shift, it would be timing over restriction. It’s less about cutting things out and more about giving your body a proper gap between the last mouthful and the pillow. Two to three hours, where you can manage it. Some nights that’s not realistic, and that’s fine, one heavy late dinner isn’t going to undo anything. It’s the pattern that seems to matter, not the odd exception.
I’d also say, and this is the one quiet opinion I’ll offer, that I think we’ve overcomplicated this with supplements and tracking apps when the actual lever is boringly simple: eat at a reasonable hour, eat food that isn’t mostly sugar and fat stacked together, and pay attention to your own patterns instead of someone else’s protocol. That’s not a popular take when there’s a whole industry built around sleep optimisation, but it’s what’s held up for me over a few years of notebook entries.
Reading your own patterns
What actually helps most people, I think, is less about a perfect diet and more about noticing. If you’re waking at the same time most nights, it’s worth looking back at what you ate and when, the same way I do with that battered notebook. I wrote a bit about this kind of pattern-spotting in How to read your energy slumps (and what to do about them), and the same logic applies to sleep. It’s not about doing anything drastic. It’s about paying enough attention that your own evidence starts to outweigh whatever the latest article tells you to try.
Tomorrow I’ll be back at the Haven before six, and if the swim feels heavy, I already have a fair idea why. It’ll be in the notebook either way.
— Tanya Pryce, Golden Door Living
