Sweet potatoes for improving sleep

[Varius]

Around three months ago I discovered that eating orange sweet potatoes has a big impact on my quality of sleep. I have been struggling with insomnia for a couple years now and it got quite a lot better after I started adhering to a whole foods plant-based diet 100% like I mentioned in my testimonial post [>]. However I wanted further improvement as the quality of my sleep had gone from horrendous to merely "bad" or "very bad", which was a big improvement and I felt lot better but I wanted my sleep to be better than "bad". And I have found that eating sweet potatoes improves my sleep quite drastically to the point where I would describe my quality of sleep as being around "okay" or "not very good". I also want to say that I am basically 100% sure of the connection; I have tried not eating them for sometime and then eating them again, and they can also make me more sleepy just after eating them.

I will give some additional details:

• I am talking specifically about orange sweet potatoes. The white variety did not seem to have any effect and I haven't tried any of the other colours. I live in Australia and the ones I eat are called "Gold sweet potatoes" or "Kumara".
  
  
• The effect is basically on a day by day basis. So if I eat a sweet potato my sleep will be better on that day. I did notice though that if I ate a whole sweet potato on each day for around four days in a row the effect would also appear on the next day even if I didn't eat one.
  
  
• I pretty much always just microwave sweet potatoes when I eat them now. Once when I had them baked they worked as well.
  
  
• Even around a third of a large sweet potato is enough to induce the effect though a whole one might be stronger.
  
  
• I eat them during the evening or at night. I don't think it would make much difference whether I ate them earlier but I am not sure as I haven't tried it.

So this is something people who are trying to improve their quality of sleep could try. I am quite curious as to whether it would have anything like the same level impact on others as it has had on me.

[MINNIE]

That is so interesting!

My sleep was always bad to terrible, for my whole life before adopting this way of eating. I sleep much better now, and rarely experience insomnia at all.

I do eat sweet potatoes (of all colors) on most days, so I don't know if there is cause and effect although I can speculate that there is.

Maybe someday I will try not eating them for a few days and see if my sleep is worse:).

Just joking, because I would not want to go a day without eating some form of potato.

I do think/suspect that high starch consumption is a factor in my improved sleep, and my "gut" feeling is that it has to do with tubers, as I also sleep well on days when I substitute yellow potatoes (Yukon potatoes in the USA) for sweet potatoes.

I'm just guessing of course, not trying to claim my experience as scientific evidence.

Another factor, for me, is the absence of oil in my diet. I used to wake up many times per night due to pain from acid reflux. When the oil disappeared, the reflux disappeared.

But I strongly believe that there is a lot more to be learned about the benefits of eating sweet potatoes, for many different health problems. For me, they are a miracle plant - and I can buy my miracles for $0.69/lb at the market:D .

I hope to see more genuine research done on this topic in the future!

[pundit999]

This is a great tip!

I eat sweet potatoes on and off but I would now like to eat them more regularly and see if I notice anything. I do sleep OK majority of the time but I would like to sleep even better.

Sweet potatoes of the orange kind do have lots of beta carotene compared to the while flesh ones. They are one the healthiest foods anyone can eat. And they are cheap (< $1 per lb) at least in the US.

Do you eat the skin? Skin has lots of benefits but I am afraid to eat it if I buy non-organic.

[Varius]

Sweet potatoes of the orange kind do have lots of beta carotene compared to the while flesh ones

I don't know what it is in the orange sweet potato that causes the effect but I don't think it's the beta-carotene because I eat carrots quite often and they don't have the same effect.

Do you eat the skin? Skin has lots of benefits but I am afraid to eat it if I buy non-organic.

No, I don't eat the skin.

[Varius]

My sleep was always bad to terrible, for my whole life before adopting this way of eating. I sleep much better now, and rarely experience insomnia at all.

That's interesting to know MINNIE. I have heard a few accounts of sleep improving when shifting to a plant-based diet now. My hunch is that the Western style of diet probably causes sleeping problems for a lot of people and that a lot of people could improve their sleep by changing to a McDougall style diet. I would be really interested to see some studies done looking at the effect of a McDougall diet on sleep.

[vgpedlr]

Interesting. I know that the book Potatoes Not Prozac suggests eating a small potato before bed to help sleep because it encourages a serotonin response that leads to a melatonin increase which helps sleep. But the author recommends any starch you like.

Do you eat the skin? Skin has lots of benefits but I am afraid to eat it if I buy non-organic.

Don't overthink the organic issue. The benefits come from conventional produce as well, and the contamination issue is not as big a deal as people think. As far as I know, the main benefit in the skin is fiber.

[Ltldogg]

Interesting. I know that the book Potatoes Not Prozac suggests eating a small potato before bed to help sleep because it encourages a serotonin response that leads to a melatonin increase which helps sleep. But the author recommends any starch you like.

Do you eat the skin? Skin has lots of benefits but I am afraid to eat it if I buy non-organic.

Don't overthink the organic issue. The benefits come from conventional produce as well, and the contamination issue is not as big a deal as people think. As far as I know, the main benefit in the skin is fiber.

+1 to what Vgpedlr said!

Here are some links from Dr. McDougall and Jeff Novick on the organic (non) issue:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewt ... =22&t=6229
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/E ... ganic.html
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/E ... Dozen.html

Cheers,
Scott

[MINNIE]

For what it's worth, I do eat the skin, organic or not.

I just scrub the veggies clean and hope for the best:). For me, the benefits of extra fiber outweigh the risk (if any) from a minutel amount of pesticide residue.