What if I told you that you could sleep 60 to 90 minutes longer per night just by eating a single food?
What if I were to tell you that this food is like taking 4 different sleep supplements?
And what if I were to tell you that it’s a tasty fruit?
Well, believe it or not, it’s true.
And this tasty fruit won’t just help you sleep better. It will also help you wake up without painful muscles and joints.
It really is nature’s perfect sleep remedy. In fact, it’s even better than taking melatonin supplements. Here’s why.
The Problem With Melatonin
As you may know, melatonin will help you sleep. But the problem with melatonin is that you may have to take a lot of it to stay asleep all night. And taking a lot of melatonin can make you wake up groggy and still sleepy.
But nature’s perfect sleep aid has fixed this problem. Here’s how:
We’ve known for years that tart cherries are a fantastic sleep aid. Most people think that’s because they contain melatonin. And they do. But get this – tart cherries don’t contain enough melatonin to be the only reason they help you sleep so well.
So what’s the secret to tart cherries’ ability to beat insomnia?
It’s simple: Tart cherries don’t rely on just melatonin to help you sleep. They contain at least 3 other sleep nutrients. And these nutrients all work in different ways to help you sleep better and longer.
The Real Secret to Great Sleep
One of those nutrients is anthocyanin. This is the flavonoid that produces the vibrant red, purple, and blue hues in plants. Anthocyanin is an antioxidant that also acts as an anti-inflammatory. And that’s where it really helps with sleep.
Chronic inflammation is the most overlooked reason people don’t sleep well. And most of us have chronic inflammation everywhere in our body. It’s in our digestive track, our respiratory system, our circulatory system, and our brain.
And this inflammation agitates our nervous system and alters our ability to sleep.
Signs of chronic inflammation include:
• Waking up with a headache
• Waking up with a tight jaw
• Pain interrupts your sleep
• An upset stomach wakes you up
• Your mind races
Chronic inflammation increases the stress hormone cortisol. And cortisol keeps you awake. So you have to calm chronic inflammation. And anthocyanin does just that.
In fact, studies have shown that anthocyanins block inflammation as effectively as NSAIDs like ibuprofen, naproxen, and aspirin.
But inflammation is only part of the tart cherry story.
Are Your Muscles Keeping You Awake?
Another reason for lost sleep is muscle tightness. This can come from stress, anxiety, chronic inflammation, or just overuse. Regardless of the cause, there’s an ingredient in tart cherries that can help – magnesium.
I’ve written a lot about magnesium. It’s vital for a bunch of biological processes, including sleep. Magnesium calms down the nervous impulses in your muscles. It interacts with muscle cells and helps lower blood pressure. It also helps reduce muscle twitching at night, keeping you asleep for longer.
And if that weren’t enough, tart cherries have another ingredient that helps you sleep – tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid that helps create serotonin. Serotonin is the happiness molecule. In addition to making you feel blissful, serotonin also regulates sleep.
Not only do Montmorency cherries contain tryptophan, but they also have compounds (procyanidins) that stop its breakdown. So eating Montmorency tart cherries doesn’t just give you more tryptophan, it protects the tryptophan already in your body so you can sleep longer.
How to Maximize Tart Cherries Effectiveness
The best way to eat cherries is fresh off the tree. But you can eat them dried and frozen (remove the pits first).
You can also drink tart cherry juice. The problem with juice, of course, is the sugar content. Drinking a full glass of juice before bedtime will give you about 25 grams of sugar – which can be a problem for diabetics and those trying to avoid all those calories.
But there’s an easy way to avoid all that sugar and still get all the effects of tart cherries. Just buy the juice in concentrate. You can easily find organic concentrate in most health food stores and online. One serving will usually have about 7 grams of sugar – much less than the juice.
I recommend dividing the dose in half and take it twice a day. Mix one ounce of the concentrate in 8 ounces of water or seltzer in the morning and then again 30 minutes before bedtime.
Most people who do this sleep better, longer – at least an hour longer than usual. In fact, a university study found that those who drank Montmorency tart cherry juice in the morning and at night slept an average of 84 minutes longer. Plus, the participants’ sleep was deeper and “more efficient.”
What’s more, many people find that the anti-inflammatory effects of the tart cherries help them wake up pain free. No more headaches in the morning. No more muscle and joint pain when they get out of bed. And many of them find that they don’t grind their teeth when they sleep.