It’s late at night. You’re dead tired. You lie down in bed and close
your eyes, wanting to get a goodnight sleep. You toss and turn, take on
all the sleeping positions you love, and count sheep in your head… only
to find that more than an hour has passed and you’re still wide awake.
What’s wrong with you?
Chances are, you probably ate something that’s keeping you up right
before bedtime. If you don’t want to have insomnia come knocking into
your bedroom, stay away from these 13 worst foods to eat at night. These
are the kinds of foods that will prevent you from getting a shuteye and
well-deserved rest.
1. Chocolate
I know what you’re thinking. How can something so divine be bad for
bedtime? Just the thought of smooth, luscious chocolate gliding in your
mouth makes you want to snuggle with a pillow and call it a night.
Chocolate has caffeine though, especially dark chocolate. Caffeine is
normally found in the cacao pods used to make chocolate. It is the same
thing present in coffee which gives you that morning jolt and extra
doses of energy throughout the day. It is a stimulant that improves
mental alertness, reduces tiredness, and speeds up your metabolic rate –
not exactly the things you want before heading to bed.
Darker chocolates usually contain more caffeine than lighter colored
ones, making them the worst possible chocolate to eat before sleep.
Basically, the darker the chocolate is, the more caffeine you can get
out of it. The more caffeine a chocolate has, the more you should avoid
it at night.
Some of these dark chocolates contain a significant amount of
caffeine. Take Hershey’s Bliss Dark Chocolate for example. It has 30 mg
of caffeine. That is about 25 to 38 percent the caffeine of a standard
sized cup of coffee, more caffeine than a half ounce of espresso, just a
little less than the caffeine found in a cup of brewed tea, and the
same amount found in a cup of instant tea. Even milk chocolate has
enough caffeine to keep you up. A 1.5 oz. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar
has 9 to 12 mg of caffeine, which is 3 to 4 times more than the caffeine
present in a cup of decaffeinated coffee.
Caffeine is not the only culprit in chocolate however. It also
contains another stimulant – theobromine. Theobromine causes your heart
to race and will make sleeping difficult. The one type of chocolate you can eat at night is white chocolate. It does not contain theobromine and has little to no caffeine.