In fact, experts encourage a spoonful of honey before bed to keep you satiated throughout the night. Read on, below. In case you need a refresher: When people wake up to stomach pangs in the middle of the night, it’s usually because their blood sugar has spiked, sending messages to the brain that it’s time to release cortisol and get some food into your system, like, right now. Perhaps that’s why professional biohacker Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof and author of Fast This Way, says in his mbg podcast interview that “Even if I’m fasting, a teaspoon or two of raw honey before bed can make me sleep all night long.” Here’s the science: Your brain turns to the liver glycogen1 (aka, your glucose storage tank) to power itself during times when glucose is limited—like, say, when you’re fasting, exercising, or clocking hours of beauty sleep. Honey—with its equal amounts of fructose and glucose—can help restore your liver glycogen2 so your brain doesn’t use up all that storage. And, thus, no hunger pangs waking you up at odd hours. Not to mention, another study even found that honey activates hormones that suppress appetite and delays the body’s ghrelin response3 (that’s your hunger hormone). Aside from keeping you satisfied and snoozing, some studies have shown honey can even enhance the quality of your sleep. Take this randomized controlled trial, for instance, which found that drinking a milk-honey mixture before bed improved participants’ sleep quality4. Another study found that children with upper-respiratory-tract infections who supplemented with honey 30 minutes before bed were able to sleep through the night easier5.
