If you eat two kiwifruits one hour before bedtime, you will sleep longer and more effectively. The effect is quite spectacular and worth noticing.
A little experiment carried out by Taipei Medical University in the years 2005/2006 (PMID: 21669584) was accomplished by 24 people: 2 men and 22 women at the age of 20-55. All the participants reported earlier sleep problems.
The participants, for 4 weeks, one hour before bedtime ate 2 medium size kiwifruits. Their sleep was registered by actigraph and half an hour after waking up, the subjects filled in sleep diaries, noting down their feelings regarding the past night.
In the light of the actigraphs’ indications regular kiwifruit consumption before sleep considerably prolonged total sleep time, i.e. by 16,9% and slightly increased sleep effectiveness – by 2,4%.
This means that the participants of the experiment slept 40-60 minutes longer.
This was in accordance with the feelings of the subjects which were noted down in their sleep diaries, who also reported the improvement of these parameters: the increase of sleep time by 13,4% and effectiveness by 5,41%.
The participants also fell asleep faster.
The Taiwanese study suggests that regular kiwi consumption before sleep positively influences sleep and everyone may try how it may affect him or herself. The perspectives are promising.
The researchers demonstrated a few possibilities of the causes of kiwifruit’s influence on sleep, among others, relatively high serotonin level in fruit.
|
SEROTONIN CONTENT IN FRUIT AND VEGETABLES (mcg/g) |
|
| Plantains (vegetable bananas) | 30.3 +/- 7.5 |
| Pineapples | 17.0 +/- 5.1 |
| Bananas | 15.0 +/- 2.4 |
| Kiwifruits | 5.8 +/- 0.9 |
| Plums | 4.7 +/- 0.8 |
| Tomatoes | 3.2 +/- 0.6 |
| Avocado Haas | 1.6 +/- 0.4 |
| Avocado Fuerte | 1.5 +/- 0.21 |
| Avocado Booth | 0.2 +/- 0.04 |
| Date fruits | 1.3 |
| Grapefruits | 0.9 |
| Cantaloupes | 0.9 |
| Honeydew melon | 0.6 |
| Low serotonin level, between 0.2 and 0.1 mcg/g is in: black olives, broccoli, eggplant, figs, spinach, cauliflower. | |
| Based on: Feldman JM, Lee EM. Serotonin content of foods, effect on urinary excretion of 5-hydroxyndoleacetic acid. Am J Clin Nutr. 1985 Oct; 42(4):639-43. | |
Conclusion:
Consuming two kiwifruits an hour before bedtime for four weeks caused the improvement of falling asleep, time of sleep and its effectiveness among adults complaining about sleep problems.
