Nutrition HELP FOR SLEEP, AND RECOVERY

NUTRITION ADVICE TO AID WITH RECOVERY SLEEP “Foods That Help Or Harm Your Sleep”, from WebMD as reviewed by Kathleen Zelman MPH, RD, LD is a slideshow piece that is easy and fast to get through if you need help in this area. The discussion about sleep started in yesterday's post (October 21, 2016).
 
Sleeping the appropriate number of hours each night is a prescription for recovery that is being recommended more and more frequently by top athletes and coaches. Runners are told to give their legs a break on certain days of their training schedules by scheduling “active” rest days and by getting enough sleep. Some elites have suggested taking naps after hard training sessions!
 
If you have read other nutrition-focused articles aimed at helping to improve sleep, there are some items that are predictably present on the list of what NOT to consume, like caffeine. However, this particular instruction sheet of “eat this, not that” is a bit more helpful in that it gives you a TIME LINE of when to cut off consumption before bedtime of what can be harmful to sleep. Foods identified as likely to aid with sleep, first on the slideshow in fact, are those rich in the amino acid (a building block of protein) tryptophan: dairy, bananas, eggs, seeds and nuts, and honey. Simple carbohydrates are encouraged also. 
 
Because maintaining weight within a healthy range is beneficial to sleep as well as running, the author’s equally important, but somewhat hidden advice is to be sure portion sizes of the sleep-friendly ingredients are SMALL.
 
I found the article to be quite informative. It confirmed that my Mom was wise to give us milk and graham crackers as a “night snack”.
 
RUN HAPPY!
 
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/ss/slideshow-sleep-foods
 
https://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/high-tryptophan-foods.php