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Chiles cause sleeplessness?

JayT

JayT

I watched an episode of The Food Detectives on the Food Network tonight and their first investigation was whether or not eating spicy food before bed can be detrimental to sleep. They had a test group eat bland cheese pizza with no sauce the first night and had them sleep at a sleep disorder center where they measured their brainwaves, sleep levels, etc etc. Then they repeated the procedure the next day with the same pizza with jalapenos and chile flakes. The same subjects slept in the same conditions and had a harder time falling asleep and did not reach the same levels of sleep. Thus, according to them, chiles equal restlessness in your sleep patterns and not a good night sleep. I wonder what would happen if they gave them a Passow's Famous Zero pizza or one with some fresh nagas on it?
 
Were these people used to eating hot food, my guess is no. I would have a hard time falling asleep with a burning gut too, but i am a little used to it now. Maybe this could affect the results rendered.
 
i dunno, there may be some merrit to the study; ive been eating hot food all week (more than usual) and ive been sleeping like crap... another thought is that when you eat spicy foods your brain releases endorphins, that might make it harded to get to sleep; however if you were to eat them early enough in the night, you might "come down" from your natural high and thus be sleepier; i guess it might depend more on when you eat the spicy food rather than if
 
I know if I have a really spicy dinner, I tend to wake up earlier than normal for my morning "ritual". ...and it lasts longer too.

Ooops. We're talking about sleep. Sorry.
 
Sid03SVT said:
i dunno, there may be some merrit to the study; ive been eating hot food all week (more than usual) and ive been sleeping like crap... another thought is that when you eat spicy foods your brain releases endorphins, that might make it harded to get to sleep; however if you were to eat them early enough in the night, you might "come down" from your natural high and thus be sleepier; i guess it might depend more on when you eat the spicy food rather than if
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I don't doubt it has some merit, but it would be better done with a group like ourselves i think. I mean everone can eat peppers but the majority choose not to, so you would be better off in my opinion to test pepper eaters.
 
I'm sure that people used to hot food would have changed the outcome. I have to deal with medical studies and statistics quite a lot and it's always the design that makes the outcome. It's like Winston Churchill said: "The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself."
 
I agree that it depends on who you're feeding the hot stuff to. I have never noticed anything like that, although I agree with Omri, that a burning belly doesn't make it easier to go to sleep.
 
i wondered if they monitored what the person ate throughout the rest of the day. did the people do the same amount of activity before eating this meal? did they eat the same amount of pizza - maybe they ate more of the bland pizza and therefore their body was working harder to digest? did they eat at the exact same time and then go to sleep the same amount of time later? with the spicy food did they drink more pop because it was spicy - thus giving them more caffeine in their system?

i think there are way to many variables to this to conclude that spicy food keeps you up at night.
 
Armadillo said:
I'm sure that people used to hot food would have changed the outcome. I have to deal with medical studies and statistics quite a lot and it's always the design that makes the outcome. It's like Winston Churchill said: "The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself."
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Damn true words and i thought they kept you awake..Burnnn :mouthonfire:
 
talas said:
Damn true words and i thought they kept you awake..Burnnn :mouthonfire:
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No, those words help me to find back to sleep when other people's statistics keep me awake...;)

ring sting said:
Do you think anal insertion of hot sauce might keep you up too? ;)
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Hey, some trans-forum cross-thread hijacking! :clap:
 
a late meal that is exxtra spicy can keep me awake, or maybe I'm just lying there savouring the experience...

capsaicin does hasten the metabolism so it stands to reason that it would be more difficult to relax depending on your tolerance level, how much you ate and the time you eat before retiring
 
As the study only took place over 2 nights without controls, that is more a dead reckoning guess rather than an actual experiment. I eat my main meal every night at about 9pm and shortly after off to bed and at every meal I eat habs, habs and jalapenos, hot sauce, or a combo of both hot sauce and peppers. I never have trouble sleeping...even with the addition of 6 or more hoski's..and sometimes I even toss in a few cavallito's of Hornitos Tequila.
Echelle' chingaso compadre's! Life is good.

Cheers, TB.
 
theHippySeedCo said:
no probs with sleep here, just that busy atm its hard to actually get to bed :)
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Uh isn't that problem somewhat connected to your playing poker ALLL NIGHTT LOONGGGGGG :)

P.S. Check your msn later, i have a some measurements i need, it is all drawn up and should be pretty easy to understand.
 
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