You can also try moving your food intake earlier in the day. Our metabolism works differently depending on the time. When we’re awake, our body burns calories. But when we sleep, it moves into calorie saving-mode – a hibernation strategy.
Ideally, we would eat most of our calories over breakfast and lunch, followed by a small, easy-to-digest dinner, containing high protein, high fibre, low fat and low sugar.
Before industrialisation, this is indeed how most humans ate. Millions in the north of England still call lunch “dinner”, because for a long time it was the day’s main meal.
But then work schedules changed, and the spread of electric lights allowed more socialising in the evening. Now, office workers tend to eat a miniscule breakfast, with a quick sandwich at their desk over lunch. Then comes dinner, when they consume most of their calories. This is exactly the wrong way of doing things.
Exercise is more complicated. We tend to burn more stored calories when exercising in the morning, meaning a pre-breakfast jog should be perfect. But we also exercise longer and harder in the afternoon and early evening, because our core body temperature rises throughout the day and peaks in the afternoon, increasing muscle power. It’s a balancing act; you have to find the exercise regime that works for you.
Alcohol is often used as a sedative to help you fall asleep. But that won’t provide good, high-quality biological sleep. Increasingly, our children’s generation avoids alcohol entirely. It may well be a good example to follow.
Professor Russell Foster is director of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute, University of Oxford
As told to Luke Mintz
