Here is why you should have early dinner

Express News Service

We Indians have been following a routine of an early dinner before or around sunset for ages. But due to work and lifestyle changes, people are moving to late night dinners and that is why almost everyone nowadays is facing digestion issues.

Early meals are good for the body and after having an early dinner, break the fast next morning only when you feel hungry. When you start following an early dinner routine, for the first two to three days you may feel hungry late at night, which is normal. But after a couple of days, the body adapts to this pattern with ease and you will notice that the hunger pangs get reduced. Let’s look at the benefits of having an early dinner:

• When one follows an early dinner routine, every bit of it is digested well before sleeping. So you go to bed with an almost empty stomach. With digestion complete, your body utilises all the energy for healing, recovery and repair. Thus, we wake up feeling fresh. In the case of a heavy dinner and sleeping immediately after that, the body is still in the breakdown process and generating energy. The quality of one’s sleep is thus hampered. To get better sleep, it’s important to have an early meal.
• After sunset, the body starts releasing melatonin which signals our gut to lower the digestive enzymes, thus reducing the digestion process. Melatonin starts preparing the body for healing at these hours. But a heavy meal late at night leads to indigestion, acidity, bloating, and poor sleep issues.
• With an early dinner you have better digestion, fewer bouts of acidity and constipation, which is common due to late night dinners. A well rested digestive system helps eliminate toxins.
• Having late night meals means high intake of salt, which also does not get digested well. Too much salt then causes water retention leading to puffiness, a swollen face as well as bloating. This apart, it can lead to the alarming risk of high blood pressure or even cardiac issues. Having an early dinner, on the other hand, leads to proper digestion, which controls the retention, regulates proper BP and improves heart health as well.

All of these benefits result in upping the body’s immunity, which will take care of your health. Now if it’s not possible to have early dinner—for those with odd working hours—at least try to have your last meal two to three hours before you sleep. It’s important that we feed our body with balanced food at the right timings. If you make the right choices, you will not need to make any extra efforts to follow any diet. We need more simplicity in this world. The worst thing for our body is late night heavy meals as this leads to both sleep deprivation and indigestion. Try following an early dinner from now on and reap its benefits to the fullest.

Deepika Rathod
Chief Nutrition Officer, Luke Coutinho Holistic Healing Systems. The writer is a clinical nutritionist who focuses on healthy lifestyle choices.