An old wives’ tale has it that a little kick to the palate before bed can lead to fitful sleep, if not nightmares.
It’s the sort of wisdom that often turns out to be based on no evidence at all- or, worse, flat wrong. But in this case, it’s good advice.
Research has shown over the years a spicy meal at night can indeed lead to poor sleep. The most direct study to show this was published in the international journal of psychophysiology by a team of Australian researchers.
The scientists recruited a group of young, healthy men and had them cosume meals that contained Tabasco sauce and mustard shortly before they turned in on some evenings and non-spiced control meals on other evenings.
On the nights that included spicy meals, there were marked changes in the subject’s sleep patterns. They spend less time in both the light face of sleep known as stage two and the deep, slow-wave stage 3 &4. All of which meant that they experienced less sleep over all and took longer to drift off.
Several things may account for the effect .an obvious possibility in indigestion but the scientists also noted that after eating the spicy meal the subjects had elevated body temperatures during their first sleep cycle , which has been linked in other studies to poor sleep quantity.
THE VERDICT:
A SPICY MEAL BEFORE BED CAN IMPAIR SLEEP
