If you are a fan of staying up late, watching TV in the late hours of the night, or perhaps preferring to work quietly after everyone sleeps, you may be prone to night hunger syndrome, and despite some attempts to maintain a diet or commit to eating healthy food throughout the day, the night It may all blow up just by opening the fridge door, but your eating behavior during the day seems to control your appetite at night.
According to experts, there are many reasons why you might feel hungry at night, and you should know the real reason behind it;
Is it a real desire to eat or just boredom, sadness, or even happiness?
"If it's physiological, you probably haven't eaten enough during the day or at dinner," Lisa Young, associate professor of nutrition at the University of York, tells PopSugar.
As Hannah Brilling, a clinical dietitian at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, emphasized, "Simple carbs - found in foods like white rice, potatoes, and pasta - are digested more quickly, causing you to feel hungry sooner than we feel after eating proteins and fats." and fibres."
Your nighttime hunger can also be linked to sleep, according to Brilling. "Most times, nighttime hunger is the result of a late bedtime or an underlying sleep problem."
Brilling recommends 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night, and she explained that if you feel like you have to eat in order to get back to sleep?
Try to question that assumption, and collect some data in a notebook to see what really happens if you eat or don't eat at night."
Using food to curb your feelings is a bad idea (Getty Images)
Prevent cravings
One of the first tips that nutrition experts recommend - according to the HealthLine website - is to start sleeping early, pay attention to what you eat for dinner, and make sure that the last meal of the day does not contain more than 25% of carbohydrates, and try to choose cereals. Whole, unprocessed foods, such as quinoa, lentils, or beans, fill the rest of the plate with veggies and protein.
For a more effective nighttime snack, Brilling recommends eating a small portion of healthy fats and proteins, such as full-fat Greek yogurt, a tablespoon of peanut butter, or a quarter cup of nuts.
She pointed out that this meal has a double benefit.
Fats are satisfactory to the appetite and help to eat small amounts that make us feel full for longer periods.
And if you still feel hungry again before bed, know that sleep and daytime meals are not the only reasons, in addition to behavioral causes, the hormone Ghrelin, which is called the hunger hormone, increases in the night period, and then stimulates appetite and increases intake food and promotes fat storage.
Eating for no reason
Night eating has been linked to some eating disorders, such as binge eating disorder and nocturnal eating syndrome, which are characterized by different behaviors and eating patterns.
In both, people use food to suppress emotions such as sadness, anger or frustration, and often eat even when they are not hungry.
On the other hand, people with night eating syndrome tend to consume more than 25% of their daily calories at night, and both conditions are associated with obesity, depression, and difficulty sleeping.
To feel full throughout the day, eat plenty of vegetables, protein, and healthy oils (pixels).
Track your habits
Keeping track of your eating and exercise habits will help curb your feelings of eating without hunger.
Follow the routine
Setting daily meal times and separating eating and sleeping can help you control food cravings.
Get rid of stress
Anxiety and stress are among the most common reasons people eat when they are not hungry.
However, using food to curb your feelings is a bad idea.
If you notice that you eat when you are anxious or stressed, try to find another way to get rid of negative emotions, such as relaxing, walking, making a phone call to a friend, reading a book, breathing exercises, meditating, or taking a hot shower, and this will make you feel better .
reduce sugars
When you feel the urge to eat at night or during the day, your food choices are likely to be poor and full of sugars and starches, which makes you feel hungry even if you have just finished eating a heavy meal.
In general, it is believed that eating less than 3 times a day reduces your ability to control your appetite and food choices.
Make protein your friend
If you're eating because you're hungry, eating protein at every meal may help curb your hunger.
It can also help you feel satisfied throughout the day, keep you from preoccupied with food, and help prevent snacking at night.
Seek psychological support
If you think you may have nocturnal eating syndrome or binge eating disorder, seek professional help from a medical professional, who can help you identify your triggers and implement a treatment plan.
These plans often use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which has been shown to help with many eating disorders, which leads to finding ways to manage negative emotions that may lead you to the fridge at night.