Transcriptly

Best Diet & Time to Eat for Increasing Deep Sleep | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Huberman Lab Clips11:37Added Aug 31, 2026

Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Dr. Andrew Huberman discuss how dietary content and meal timing influence sleep quality, highlighting how high fiber intake promotes deep slow-wave sleep while saturated fats and late-night eating can disrupt rest by interfering with core body temperature regulation.

Watch on YouTube →
Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

Transcript format

  1. Diet & Sleep Relationship

  2. 00:00How does what we eat impact our sleep?
  3. 00:02This is something that I think most
  4. 00:03people have heard about in the context
  5. 00:06of try not to eat too close to bedtime.
  6. 00:08Um, this is an active debate in many
  7. 00:10households. Actually, some people seem
  8. 00:12to be fine eating close to bedtime and
  9. 00:15sleeping and even if they track their
  10. 00:16sleep, other people it really disrupts
  11. 00:19their sleep. I'm interested in both the
  12. 00:21timing of food intake relative to sleep,
  13. 00:24but also the content of the food and how
  14. 00:26it impacts sleep. what's known about
  15. 00:28that either from your work or from other
  16. 00:30work.
  17. 00:31When we started this conversation, I was
  18. 00:32telling you about these population based
  19. 00:34studies, you know, cross-sectional
  20. 00:36data where two things happen at the same
  21. 00:39time and you, you know, you you don't
  22. 00:41really know causality, they happen at
  23. 00:43the same time. And I think early on uh
  24. 00:46in this field we started thinking about
  25. 00:49sleep as the promoter of food intake or
  26. 00:54as a sleepcausing
  27. 00:57changes in diet exercise but didn't
  28. 01:00really think that maybe it's the other
  29. 01:02way around or maybe the other way around
  30. 01:03is just as plausible.
  31. 01:06So I started thinking about that and
  32. 01:08said well what what if we took the other
  33. 01:11approach? What if we looked at diet and
  34. 01:15examined how diet influenced future
  35. 01:18sleep?
  36. 01:19And my first paper in this field was
  37. 01:23using data from the multi-ethnic study
  38. 01:25of atheroscerosis. It's actually kind of
  39. 01:28[clears throat] hard to find good
  40. 01:29cohorts that have good nutrition data,
  41. 01:33good sleep data, and data over over
  42. 01:37years. Right? So MESA multi-thnics of
  43. 01:40study of atheroscerosis is one of those
  44. 01:42great cohorts that we have in here in
  45. 01:44the US that has all of the above. So I

  46. Mediterranean Diet

  47. 01:48paired up with a colleague of mine Susan
  48. 01:50Redline in Boston and uh she's a
  49. 01:53principal investigator on their sleep
  50. 01:54ancillary study and we asked the
  51. 01:57question of diet quality and its impact
  52. 02:00on sleep duration, insomnia symptoms and
  53. 02:03we found that having a diet that more
  54. 02:06closely aligns with the Mediterranean
  55. 02:08diet was associated with better uh
  56. 02:11probability of having adequate sleep and
  57. 02:14reduced um insomnia symptoms in this
  58. 02:16cohort. So then it launched a whole
  59. 02:19field of study really to to keep looking
  60. 02:21at this and we've looked at this in
  61. 02:23different studies and different cohorts
  62. 02:26actually uh earlier this year we
  63. 02:28published data from the women's health
  64. 02:30initiative another large large cohort
  65. 02:32with good diet data and and sleep
  66. 02:35information. We took a really really
  67. 02:37nice approach in this uh longitudinal
  68. 02:39analysis. I don't know. Usually when we
  69. 02:42do longitudinal studies, we exclude
  70. 02:45people who have the condition at
  71. 02:47baseline, right? So if you're trying to
  72. 02:49see this factor at baseline, how does it
  73. 02:53influence hypertension 10 years later,
  74. 02:57you usually exclude people who have
  75. 02:58hypertension at baseline? Because you
  76. 03:00want to see the development of
  77. 03:02hypertension. In this case, we're
  78. 03:04looking at insomnia symptoms. But
  79. 03:05insomnia is one of those conditions
  80. 03:08that's not necessarily
  81. 03:11static. It resolves, right? So you can
  82. 03:14have insomnia and then a few years later
  83. 03:17not have insomnia
  84. 03:19or you can not have insomnia now and
  85. 03:22develop insomnia. And so what we did is
  86. 03:25we broke our down our participants into
  87. 03:27two groups. the people who had no
  88. 03:31insomnia at baseline and at three years
  89. 03:36follow-up participants who had insomnia
  90. 03:39at baseline but not at 3 years followup.
  91. 03:42So they were in the healthful sleep
  92. 03:45improving sleep and then the other group
  93. 03:48was all those women who had insomnia at
  94. 03:51baseline and at three years and no
  95. 03:53insomnia at baseline but insomnia at
  96. 03:55three years. So they were the persistent
  97. 03:58insomnia progressing towards poor sleep
  98. 04:01group. And we found that the women who
  99. 04:05had a diet that was more closely aligned
  100. 04:07to the Mediterranean diet. But we also
  101. 04:10looked at uh an American type of diet
  102. 04:13profile called the DASH diet. The
  103. 04:15dietary approaches to stop hypertension.
  104. 04:17Women who had a dietary profile closer
  105. 04:20to those two types of diets, healthful
  106. 04:22diets were less likely to have
  107. 04:25hypertension uh insomnia at three years.
  108. 04:28And the DASH diet is what?

  109. DASH Diet Explained

  110. 04:30Dietary approaches to stop hypert
  111. 04:31hypertension was developed to uh reduce
  112. 04:35prevent hypertension, reduce blood
  113. 04:37pressure in people by increasing intakes
  114. 04:40of fruits and vegetables, nuts and
  115. 04:41seeds, consuming low-fat dairy, more
  116. 04:44plant-based types of uh diet and and can
  117. 04:47be has been tested in a low salt or
  118. 04:51regular salt profile.
  119. 04:53How did those work out? I'm just
  120. 04:54curious. Do you recall if the low salt
  121. 04:56high salt um condition?
  122. 04:57There is salt sensitivity. So there are
  123. 04:59some people who are very sensitive to
  124. 05:00salt and so having a reduced salt diet
  125. 05:03will really improve their blood
  126. 05:05pressure,
  127. 05:06others not so much. But the DASH diet
  128. 05:09regardless of its salt content did
  129. 05:11better than the equivalent non-dash
  130. 05:14which would be your average you know
  131. 05:16American diet
  132. 05:17whatever that is.
  133. 05:17Yeah. Higher insaturated fat and sugars
  134. 05:20and
  135. 05:20which seems to be changing now because
  136. 05:22of the GLPS. I I feel like that's, you

  137. GLP-1s & Changing Appetites

  138. 05:25know, uh maybe that's a skewed
  139. 05:26perspective, but I feel like the the
  140. 05:29typical American diet is it might not be
  141. 05:31changing so much in content, but in
  142. 05:33volume it seems like people are eating
  143. 05:34less. Certainly the snack food
  144. 05:35companies, from what I understand, are
  145. 05:37struggling. Alcohol companies, that's a
  146. 05:39different issue, but there certainly
  147. 05:41have uh sales are way way down,
  148. 05:44but it just seems like people's
  149. 05:45appetites are down.
  150. 05:47Well, GLP1s will do that, right?
  151. 05:49Yeah.
  152. 05:49Yeah. And we were talking about this the
  153. 05:51other day here. Uh how many Americans
  154. 05:54have tried a GLP? The estimates are
  155. 05:57anywhere from like one in seven. Some
  156. 05:58people say it's it's more
  157. 06:00which is pretty incredible.
  158. 06:02Yeah, it's pretty high.
  159. 06:03But this is interesting. So how people
  160. 06:04eat impacts their sleep. I'm sure the
  161. 06:07listeners and I also am thinking okay
  162. 06:10but people who are eating a
  163. 06:12Mediterranean diet, right? olive oils,
  164. 06:14fish, you know, fruits, vegetables, they
  165. 06:17are probably more apt to walk more,
  166. 06:20exercise more, socialize more, all the
  167. 06:22how do you separate out the variables in
  168. 06:24a study like that?
  169. 06:25Uh well, so in population based studies,
  170. 06:26we adjust for a bunch of coariants,
  171. 06:28right? We have all these questionnaires
  172. 06:31that uh that are given out to people
  173. 06:33asking them about their race,
  174. 06:35occupation, sociodemographic uh
  175. 06:38socioeconomic status and then we adjust
  176. 06:40we adjust for um different illnesses
  177. 06:43that they may have, depression, physical
  178. 06:46activity level. Um so we try to take all
  179. 06:50this in into consideration. Obviously we
  180. 06:54there's always unmeasured factors that
  181. 06:56you can't control for social
  182. 06:58interactions like you um you mentioned
  183. 07:02it's usually not captured very well.

  184. Controlled vs Self-Selected Diets

  185. 07:04It's not something that we uh we can
  186. 07:05adjust for. But one thing that we did in
  187. 07:08my lab uh going back to that original
  188. 07:11study was to look at uh how diet
  189. 07:16influenced sleep at night in the
  190. 07:18participants in our inpatient study. So
  191. 07:22we took the 9-hour time in bed
  192. 07:26opportunity phase only that one.
  193. 07:29[snorts] In the 4-hour time in bed
  194. 07:31opportunity, participants were very
  195. 07:33efficient. There was not much
  196. 07:34variability in sleep duration in that
  197. 07:37phase. They slept as much as they could
  198. 07:39in that 4-hour opportunity. But in the 9
  199. 07:42hours, there was variability there. Some
  200. 07:44people got more or less. So we wanted to
  201. 07:46see if food intake was related to their
  202. 07:49sleep at night. that study we had
  203. 07:53polynography assessments of sleep every
  204. 07:56single night like I mentioned we had uh
  205. 07:59controlled diet initially and then we
  206. 08:01let them self- select their food intakes
  207. 08:03so we took a very systematic approach to
  208. 08:06evaluating how diet could influence
  209. 08:08sleep in that study we said first of all
  210. 08:13was the diet that they chose different
  211. 08:15than the diet that we gave them first
  212. 08:17step right it was so they ate almost 450
  213. 08:21calories more. They ate 33% more
  214. 08:24saturated fat. Uh a little less protein,
  215. 08:28I believe, a little more carbohydrates.
  216. 08:30Not much, but it it was different.
  217. 08:33So, like, okay. So, so there's
  218. 08:34difference between the diets. Okay. Now,
  219. 08:36was [snorts] their sleep at night
  220. 08:38different when they were eating the diet
  221. 08:41that we fed them compared to what they
  222. 08:43self- selected?
  223. 08:45And it they it was different. It wasn't
  224. 08:48different in terms of duration, but it
  225. 08:51was different in time it took them to
  226. 08:53fall asleep, which was
  227. 08:55over 70% longer to fall asleep when they
  228. 08:58self- selected their diet. And their
  229. 09:01slowwave sleep, so deep sleep was
  230. 09:04shorter. I think it was about 23 20%
  231. 09:07shorter uh when they self- selected
  232. 09:09their diet compared to what we had given
  233. 09:12them.
  234. 09:12Was timing of food intake impacted?
  235. 09:15Because when I think of uh what impacts
  236. 09:18what reduces um slowwave deep sleep,
  237. 09:21it's eating too close to bedtime.
  238. 09:22Mhm. So,
  239. 09:25we did not take that into consideration
  240. 09:27in that study. We didn't uh we didn't
  241. 09:30look at that. We had their their food
  242. 09:33intake profile and didn't specifically
  243. 09:35look in that phase when's when was their
  244. 09:38last eating period. But it could have
  245. 09:40been different than in the controlled
  246. 09:43feeding condition because in the
  247. 09:44controlled feeding condition they had
  248. 09:46set meals at specific times, but they
  249. 09:48all went to bed at 10 p.m. Then the

  250. How Nutrients Affect Sleep Stages

  251. 09:50other question was, okay, what was it
  252. 09:53that they ate that day that impacted how
  253. 09:56they slept that night? And we found that
  254. 10:00higher intakes of fiber were associated
  255. 10:03with more deep sleep,
  256. 10:05higher intakes of saturated fat, less
  257. 10:08deep sleep, and then more refined
  258. 10:10carbohydrates, simple sugars, more
  259. 10:13arousals. So when we talk about arousals
  260. 10:16in the context of polyynography, it
  261. 10:18doesn't necessarily mean full-on waking
  262. 10:20up or awakening. It really means going
  263. 10:23from a deeper to lighter stage of sleep.
  264. 10:25So you may still be asleep throughout
  265. 10:28the night, but you're not getting deep
  266. 10:32slowwave sleep, REN sleep as much as you
  267. 10:34would uh otherwise.
  268. 10:37Do you create a buffer between your last
  269. 10:40bite of food and the time you go to
  270. 10:42sleep? You personally?
  271. 10:44Me personally, yes.

  272. Best Time To Stop Eating

  273. 10:45Is it an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours?
  274. 10:47I personally like to eat my last meal at
  275. 10:50least 3 hours before going to bed. And I
  276. 10:53know there's variability there.
  277. 10:54Different people have different uh
  278. 10:56tolerance. You mentioned right before
  279. 10:58that uh you know some people may be
  280. 11:00later chronotypes but what we know is
  281. 11:04that eating earlier
  282. 11:07is better overall for cardio metabolic
  283. 11:10health. Eating earlier is better. Me
  284. 11:13personally I feel I feel better by
  285. 11:16eating earlier. If I eat too close to
  286. 11:18bedtime I
  287. 11:20I get hot.
  288. 11:22Right. [laughter] Yeah. It's a It's a
  289. 11:23thermic effect of food. We want to be
  290. 11:25cooling off when we go to sleep.
  291. 11:26Exactly. Exactly.
  292. 11:32[music]
Best Diet & Time to Eat for Increasing Deep Sleep | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge & Dr. Andrew Huberman — Transcriptly