Can Consuming a Handful Of Almonds Earlier than Mattress Enhance Your Sleep?

Filled with protein, fiber, and different vitamins, almonds are an important addition to your food plan any time of day. However may additionally they allow you to get a greater night time’s sleep?

Almonds include each magnesium and melatonin—micronutrients that “assist your physique calm down and drift off extra simply,” Karman Meyer, RDN, LDN, registered dietitian nutritionist, writer, and co-founder of the NourishWell Community, instructed Well being.

Which means “a small handful of almonds earlier than mattress might give your sleep a delicate increase,” she defined.

Nonetheless, the precise science behind almonds and higher sleep is a little more sophisticated—right here’s what to know.

Primarily based on their dietary make-up, it’s attainable that almonds may assist with higher sleep.

The Micronutrients

Almonds are wealthy in magnesium, Robin Tucker, PhD, affiliate professor of meals science and human vitamin at Michigan State College, instructed Well being. This mineral might assist calm the nervous system and cut back signs of hysteria and despair, making it simpler to go to sleep.

Magnesium can also be concerned within the manufacturing of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate your circadian rhythm and tells your physique it is time for sleep.

Melatonin can also be present in almonds themselves—they’re thought of an excellent dietary supply of this sleep-promoting hormone, notably after they’re consumed uncooked.

Moreover, almonds include zinc and tryptophan—each of those are not directly concerned within the manufacturing of melatonin, too.

“This mix is [thought] to offer the correct vitamins that may assist sleep,” Julie Stefanski, MEd, RDN, LDN, registered dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Vitamin and Dietetics, instructed Well being.

The Macronutrients

One serving of almonds (about 30 grams) incorporates:

6.4 grams (g) of protein3.2 g of fiber12.75 g of unsaturated fat

This mixture of protein, fiber, and wholesome fat would possibly really allow you to keep asleep—the three can assist hold blood sugar ranges regular all through the night time, which might decrease the probabilities of sudden awakenings and sleep disruptions, Meyer defined.

These three macronutrients additionally make you are feeling extra full, so they could be a better option for a late-night snack versus one thing increased in sugar, Stefanski stated.

Primarily based on their dietary make-up alone, almonds appear to be the proper dietary hack to get higher shut-eye. Nonetheless, analysis on the topic is pretty sparse.

In 2019, Iranian researchers had 446 faculty college students eat 10 almonds every day for 2 weeks. At the beginning of the research, 78% of the scholars reported having insomnia. After including almonds to their food plan, that quantity dropped to 69%.

One other research, revealed in 2024, adopted 64 adults and cut up them into two teams—one ate 60 grams of almonds every day for 20 weeks, and the opposite ate a management snack. Ultimately, those that ate almonds reported getting higher sleep and had been additionally much less more likely to get up in the course of the night time.

Although these findings are promising, the research are very small, Stefanski famous. Plus, it’s not clear “whether or not smaller quantities of almonds have the identical advantages” for sleep, she stated.

The standard of the contributors’ sleep to start with may additionally affect the findings and make them much less relevant to the true world, stated Tucker.

At this level, she defined, there simply hasn’t been sufficient analysis to say with certainty that almonds will allow you to sleep higher.

“It’s believable that almonds may support in bettering sleep outcomes, however the proof we’ve at present doesn’t but assist this,” Tucker stated.

If you wish to eat a handful of almonds earlier than you go to mattress, it could or might not assist your sleep.

However it could be value attempting when you get peckish at night time—sleep-promoting vitamins apart, it’s powerful to go to sleep once you’re hungry, so a light-weight, wholesome snack equivalent to almonds is usually a good selection, Tucker stated.