18/05/2026
🌿 Food and sleep in peri and menopause, the link nobody talks about enough.
If you're waking at 3am wired, drenched, or just unable to drop off in the first place, your dinner plate might be part of the story.
Here's what's actually going on. Falling oestrogen affects how we regulate temperature, blood sugar and the calming brain chemicals that help us sleep. What we eat in the evening either helps that system or works against it.
Things that quietly wreck sleep:
Alcohol, even one glass. It knocks you out but fragments the deep restorative bit later in the night, and it's a big driver of night sweats.
Caffeine after lunch.
Sugary or refined carb heavy evenings. Blood sugar spikes then crashes overnight, which can wake you with a racing heart or hot flush.
Eating too close to bed. Digestion raises core temperature, the opposite of what your body needs to fall asleep.
Things that genuinely help:
A balanced evening meal with protein, slow release carbs and veg. Think salmon with sweet potato and greens, or a chickpea curry with brown rice.
Magnesium rich foods in the evening. Pumpkin seeds, almonds, leafy greens, a square of dark chocolate. Magnesium supports muscle relaxation and calmer sleep.
Tryptophan foods at dinner. Turkey, eggs, oats, bananas, dairy. Tryptophan is what your body uses to make melatonin.
Staying hydrated through the day, then easing off in the evening so you're not up for the loo at 2am.
Sleep in this phase isn't always perfect, even when you do everything right, hormones are hormones. But getting the food side working with you rather than against you takes the edge off, and over a few weeks the difference is usually real.
What's your worst sleep saboteur? Drop it in the comments, you're definitely not alone.
