Does Eating Cheese Before Bed Cause Nightmares?

Cheese before bed?! You must be crackers! 

For years, it's been said that eating cheese before bed will give you bad dreams.

But do you find yourself wishing this wasn’t true when that Cathedral City is staring back at you? Well, there’s been some research!

Back in 2005, the team at The British Cheese Board (yes, that's their real name!) took action against this bad dream stigma.

Carrying out an experiment on 100 male and female participants, they gave them 20 grams of the good stuff half an hour before they went to bed.

The results are in

If you’re a cheese lover, things can only get feta from here...

A staggering 75% of participants said they slept well at night. No-one could recall having nightmares and the vast majority could clearly remember their dreams.

Here’s the interesting thing: the study found that different cheeses create different dreams!

Different cheese = different dreams

• Cheddar - Cheddar was found to produce dreams about celebrities. Ideal if you’ve been wondering what the star role in your favourite soap is like!
• Red Leicester - Red Leicester caused dreams related to childhood memories. A chance to relive the days of your youth, perhaps?
• Stilton - Vivid, unusual and extremely bizarre dreams were experienced amongst the stilton eaters. Dreams of crocodiles wearing flat caps mean you should approach a block of stilton Caerphilly when it comes to your bedtime routine. That’s joke number 3 if you’re keeping count!
• Cheshire - If you’re wanting a sleep without any dreams then Cheshire is the safest bet for you.

So, can cheese actually help us sleep?

Currently, there isn’t a great deal of research surrounding this topic. But it is claimed that cheese can help aid our sleep-wake cycle as it includes a level of tryptophan content. 

It’s fair to say that the official cheese organisation isn't going to warn you away from the good stuff, but there seems to be enough evidence to suggest you can add cheese to the suppertime menu.

So relax, brie-th, and enjoy the taste sensation.