Can certain foods make you drowsy?

Can certain foods make you drowsy?

Chris Idzikowski (Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre) gives expert video advice on: What lifestyle choices can affect sleep?; Can certain foods make you drowsy?; Can alcohol make you sleepy? and more...

The evidence for the direct effects of food on sleep tends to be fairly meager in fact. The main things that impact on sleep are things like caffeine. Whether you're drinking coffee or not, and how late into the night that is. Alcohol is the other thing that will impact, nicotine will also impact on sleep. But things like lettuce, was one example that was used could promote sleep. The evidence is quite poor on that. It may have impacted on sleep in Roman times when the level of opiate within the lettuce was actually higher than it is nowadays. But just on the whole it's not great.