The overlooked secret to a good night’s sleep that could already be in your kitchen

Forget the sleeping pills, earplugs or plumped pillows. The real secret to a good night’s sleep could be a banana milkshake before bed, a study has found.

Researchers found that people who had trouble falling asleep fell asleep faster and slept longer when they treated themselves to the two foods last thing in the evening.

Eating a banana reduced the time it took insomniacs to fall asleep from an average of two hours to 36 minutes.

It also helped them sleep almost an hour longer than normal.

A milk drink reduced the time the volunteers were awake from more than two hours to just over one hour.

The sleep duration of milk drinkers also increased.

One in three adults in the UK suffer from insomnia. The UK economy is estimated to lose around £34 billion a year due to the effects of chronic insomnia.

The study, published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, followed 21 patients with insomnia. Just over half ate a whole banana and a small cup of milk every night for six weeks, while the other half simply tried to fall asleep.

Scientists believe the secret is that both bananas and milk are rich sources of tryptophan, a chemical vital to numerous bodily functions, including sleep.

Once tryptophan is present in the body, it is converted into a sleep-promoting hormone called melatonin.

In a report on the findings, researchers from the Istanbul University of Health Sciences, Turkey, wrote: ‘Foods high in tryptophan, such as bananas and milk, may improve sleep disorders when consumed before bedtime.

“Both drugs are known to induce sleep.”