Crave fatty foods when you're tired?
Lack of sleep can lead us to desire foods higher in fat and sugar, says Dr Marie-Pierre St-Onge from New York's Columbia University.
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Dr St-Onge has spent years studying the relationship between diet and sleep.
She says the research shows lack of sleep makes us eat more in general, especially high-fat and sometimes high-carbohydrate foods.
Part of the reason is that hormonal changes in the brain can disrupt appetite regulation, Dr St-Onge says.
"Under insufficient sleep, when you view foods the brain regions that are involved in reward and motivation get triggered more readily than when you're getting adequate sleep."
Our decision-making capacity is also affected by a lack of sleep.
"People who don't sleep enough have impaired judgment, impaired memory, and maybe that translates into all different facets of life, including what you choose to eat."
Shift workers - who are at higher risk for obesity - are best off eating only in the daytime hours and sticking to a Mediterranean-style diet that's high in fruit and vegetables with less saturated fat and processed sugar.
Eating this way has been shown to work best for both getting to sleep and staying asleep, she says.
It's also important that shift workers watch when they're having coffee.
"You don't want to be caffeinating too much especially when you're a shift worker trying to fight your circadian system in terms of when you want to sleep."
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