According to experts, healthy adults should sleep between seven and nine hours per night. After noticing a rise in people with insomnia and those getting too little sleep, researchers in Finland examined the correlation between fruit and vegetable consumption and its impact on sleep—revealing a strong association.
For their study, researchers looked at data from 5,043 adults aged 18 and older participating in the National FinHealth 2017 Study. For the study, participants shared their sleep duration and dietary intake of fruits and vegetables. The researchers also looked at other factors such as socioeconomic status and demographics. They also used a sensitivity analysis to exclude “energy under-reporters” to remove that variable.
The researchers compared the average amount of fruits and vegetables eaten by people with different sleep durations—short sleepers (averaging 6 hours per night), normal (averaging 7.7 hours per night), and long (averaging 10.1 hours per night). They found that short sleepers consumed 37 fewer grams of fruits and vegetables a day than normal sleepers and long sleepers consumed 73 grams less per day. Plus, that correlation held true with a variety of statistical models.
Given the strong link between fruit and vegetable consumption and sleep duration, the researchers emphasized the importance of looking at lifestyle variables when treating sleep disorders. They also recommend focusing on the fruit and vegetable groups with the strongest association, such as leafy greens.
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