Many people think that eating food before going to bed is bad for the body, especially for the women who pay great attention to their figure. In fact, eating some kinds of food before bedtime can help relax yourself, ease tight muscles, stabilize the tense emotion, so as to improve sleep quality and help people get rid of insomnia. These effective foods include the following four categories.

First, foods containing plenty of melatonin.
People's sleep quality is closely related with a substance in the brain, called as melatonin. During the night, darkness will stimulate the synthesis and secretion of melatonin in the human body. Then it will act on the sleep center through the blood circulation and make people sleepy. At dawn, the melatonin would be reduced by the stimulation of light, so people will wake up from sleep. Foods rich in melatonin include oatmeal, sweet corn, tomato and banana.

Second, foods that can resist against caffeine.
The excitatory effect of tea may affect sleep quality. Therefore, if you drink a lot of tea during the day, you can eat some wild jujube before going to bed, or drink a small bowl of congee made by wild jujube and rice. This is because wild jujube contains saponin A, saponin B, birchbark acid, birchbark alcohol and so on, which can reduce the level of norepinephrine in the blood, so as to improve the poor sleep caused by the caffeine.

Third, foods which can inhibit 5-hydroxytryptamine.
If you are often sleepy during the day while unable to fall asleep at night, you can eat a piece of steamed bun or bread before going to bed. Because this group of people always secrete more tryptophan in the daytime, while tryptophan will change into 5-hydroxytryptamine, which has a hypnotic effect and will lead to drowsiness. However, during the night, the content of tryptophan in the body will be lacked, which will make people easily suffer from insomnia. Therefore, eating some steamed bun or bread at night can increase the tryptophan content in the body, so people will easily fall asleep.

Fourth, foods to regulate the nerves.
If the body lacks of zinc and copper for a long time, it will affect the energy metabolism of the brain cells and the regulation of the nervous system, make the endocrine always stay in the exciting state, thus causing insomnia. In this case, you can eat more foods rich in zinc and copper at supper, such as oyster, fish, lean meat, shrimp, etc, which can improve the symptoms of neurasthenia, so as to ensure a good sleep.