Sleep And Food Choices: Why Is Ice-Cream A Favorite Late-Night Snack?

Food has a tendency to become more attractive when the sun goes down 😀 Bagels get more fragrant, donuts look glossier, and the idea of soft stretchy caramel mixing with grainy nougat and nuts filling the mouth with a variety of tastes and textures becomes an obsession. And ice-cream with all those flavors... Good God, somebody seal that fridge door at least till tomorrow morning 😋

Partly, we crave for certain food when staying up at night because we know we shouldn't have it. Another explanation, however, has to deal with sleep deprivation, and by that I don't mean absolutely sleepless or deprived of sleep for days - most of us are sleep deprived because we either don't sleep as many hours as we should or don't get enough of deep sleep, which causes our body to look for fuel substitutes to maintain good performance levels.

Sleep Deprivation: A Recipe For Disaster

When you continuously do not allow your body to rest as much as it needs to, it starts looking for the ways to compensate for it, because sleep and food are our main sources of energy. That's what your body is allowed to do without your approval when it decides that you're getting it sleep deprived:

slow down your metabolism. Anything that looks like lack is a signal to save nutrients - your brain cannot differentiate between real and fictional danger, so the survival mechanism switches on just in case.
lower a "stop eating" hormone. Also going around under the name "leptin", this hormone signals your brain that you're full and blocks appetite. Since you're not sleeping, chances are you might stop eating any time now, so your body is trying to get as many nutrients as possible fearing the unexpected.
increase the level of hunger hormone. "Ghrelin" (you don't have to memorize it or even pronounce it right 😄) increases food intake and, under normal conditions, drops after you had a meal. But since an additional source of energy (sleep) isn't promised, let's at least get as much food as possible.

Now, just imagine the trap your body set for itself: it demands more food, it no longer gets strong enough satiety signals when the food arrives, and it slows does the metabolism of the nutrients from the food it already consumed.

Change Of Food Choices: What Causes Cravings?

You can try and fool your brain with salads, but, when you're sleep deprived, your food choices become especially neurochemically driven (they've always been, but you don't get much control in the survival mode🤷). When we lack sleep, our confused brain increases cortisol production because it doesn't see an objective reason why this particular human would refuse to sleep and thinks we are in danger (cortisol levels elevate especially in the evening, which shouldn't happen because cortisol is meant to wake us up - see more here).

Trying to deal with cortisol spikes (because the brain DOES want us to sleep), the brain craves for serotonin to slow down. Serotonin, also known as a happiness hormone, sends the body into a relaxed mode, which is perfect for falling asleep. High-fat-high-carbs food increases serotonin levels, which is why it feels like cake or ice-cream make us happy. For a while. Till we realize that, to get happier this way, we need to eat more of those. Ice-cream is a perfect combination of fat and carbs to satisfy night-time cravings, that are actually a sign that your body needs rest. Chips, or other crunchy food that is also fun to eat as it offers additional sensory pleasures, is usually another popular option.

That's how many of us fall into a trap of late-night snacking, as well as snacking and munching in general. There is more behind food cravings - stay tuned to better understand how your brain tricks you into all sorts of behaviors and choices without your consent :)

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