Cheese!

L

lucifers angel

same shit, differant day!!
Registered Senior Member
Now seriously this is a serious question,

i was always told by my mum that you shouldn't eat cheese before bedtime, because it will give you nightmares. I always thought this was a load of tosh, until last night,

well my son nagged and nagged for cheese, and i tried telling him, "micheal, you know cheese will give you nightmares" but he wouldn't ahve it, and he had some anyway, but then about 4:00 this morning he had a nightmare, was this just a coincidence, or can cheese before bed really give you nightmares? if it can, what is in it that causes this? Also if it does, why do we give kids warm milk before bedtime?
 
it's possible you scared him into having a nightmare with the "warning".

Either of the two other options - it being a coincidence or cheese causing nightmares are possible too. Just saying there's a third option.
 
It is very true because whenever you eat anything within 3 hours of bedtime you risk not being able to go to sleep easily because your digestive tract is trying to dissolve and digest anything you have eaten during that 3 hour time period. Cheese is just another food that fits but any food especially sugars will be very disturbing to your trying to get to sleep. :)

Just don't eat anything within 3 hours before bedtime and you'll be better off BUT if you must eat, eat popcorn without salt or butteror any whole grain for they are the easiest to digest and the fastest as well. ;)
 
I have heard the same about chinese food and when i eat it (though i never do anymore) it did induce some odd dreams. Perhaps chemicals are released that effect the brain.
 
Hm. Then how come it's so easy to fall asleep after a big, hearty meal? I can hardly stay awake when I'm full.
 
Aivar said:
Hm. Then how come it's so easy to fall asleep after a big, hearty meal? I can hardly stay awake when I'm full.
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I just said if you have problems falling asleep not to eat anything 3 hours before bedtime. There are those people like yourself that don't have any problems and that's fine but we were discussing someone who had a problem.
 
But isn't lots of food (especially meat) putting a person to sleep an (almost) universal thing? Maybe eating a lot would put them to sleep faster. There's definitely a connection somewhere.

But I think the main question is not falling asleep, but does eating before bedtime cause nightmares? So I guess we're a little off topic.
 
I don't think so. I always eat right before bed and I haven't had a nightmare in years. And I eat lots of cheese all of the time.
 
I guess its possible :shrug: but I don't think they are related. I know a lot of the kids that I work with have nightmare's when something is weighing heavily on their minds. Like this one boy kept cheating in a battleship and all of the kids were getting mad at him and calling him a cheater and when he went to sleep he dreamed that everytime he cheated the ships would shoot missiles at him and even when he stopped cheating they would keep shooting. It really upset him, but I thought it was funny. So maybe thats it.
 
hm. Most likely, yeah, dreams are caused by psychological reasons first and foremost.
 
cosmictraveler said:
It is very true because whenever you eat anything within 3 hours of bedtime you risk not being able to go to sleep easily because your digestive tract is trying to dissolve and digest anything you have eaten during that 3 hour time period. Cheese is just another food that fits but any food especially sugars will be very disturbing to your trying to get to sleep. Just don't eat anything within 3 hours before bedtime and you'll be better off BUT if you must eat, eat popcorn without salt or butteror any whole grain for they are the easiest to digest and the fastest as well.
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I have just the opposite experience. I save most of my eating for the end of the day and it helps me sleep. If I haven't eaten anything in the three hours before bedtime I might as well just stay up. I eat huge helpings of candy or pastry right before bed and it helps me nod off quickly.

Eating in the middle of the day makes me especially sleepy. I generally avoid eating lunch because I will fall asleep in afternoon meetings. I eat a giant breakfast, skip lunch or just have a small handful of nuts, and then eat a big dinner and a nice sugary snack before bed.

I've eaten cheeseburgers and cheese sandwiches right before bed and never had nightmares.
 
Just coincidence. Find out say after a month by giving Cheese. Do that a few times to see if it is repeatable without telling the kid....
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
I have just the opposite experience. I save most of my eating for the end of the day and it helps me sleep. If I haven't eaten anything in the three hours before bedtime I might as well just stay up. I eat huge helpings of candy or pastry right before bed and it helps me nod off quickly.

Eating in the middle of the day makes me especially sleepy. I generally avoid eating lunch because I will fall asleep in afternoon meetings. I eat a giant breakfast, skip lunch or just have a small handful of nuts, and then eat a big dinner and a nice sugary snack before bed.

I've eaten cheeseburgers and cheese sandwiches right before bed and never had nightmares.
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You are one of the few that can that.
 
Wow apparently people really do believe it. The Dairy council even did a study to disprove it.

Sweet dreams are made of cheese - or at least that is the suggestion from a new study of sleep.

Researchers set out to disprove the old wives' tale that eating cheese before going to bed gives you nightmares.

And it seems they've been successful, with cheese-munching volunteers reporting no nasty dreams after a late night snack.

But it also appears that the type of cheese you choose can affect the type of dreams you have.

The study, perhaps unsurprisingly carried out by the British Cheese Board, involved 200 volunteers in a week-long cheese-eating experiment.

After eating a 20g piece of cheese 30 minutes before going to sleep, 72% of the volunteers slept very well every night, 67% remembered their dreams and none reported nightmares.

Dr Judith Bryans, a nutrition scientist at The Dairy Council, said: "One of the amino acids in cheese - tryptophan - has been shown to reduce stress and induce sleep so cheese may actually help you have a good night's sleep."

It is not clear where the cheese and nightmares myth originated.
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It has been linked to Charles Dickens' character Scrooge who blamed "a crumb of cheese" on his night-time visitations in A Christmas Carol.

When it came to dream type, it seemed that Stilton caused the most crazy dreams, with 75% of men and 85% of women eating Stilton experiencing odd and vivid dreams.

Examples of these mad dreams included a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children, and soldiers fighting each other with kittens rather than guns.

Almost two-thirds (65%) of volunteers eating cheddar reported dreaming about celebrities, including Jordan and Johnny Depp.

More than six out of 10 volunteers eating Red Leicester had nostalgic dreams about their past, including school days and childhood friends.

British brie tended to give women nice dreams, such as Jamie Oliver cooking dinner in their kitchen, while the men had odd dreams such as having a drunken conversation with a dog.
 
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