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Higher fibre intake is linked to more time spent in deep sleep, while a more diverse diet rich in fruits, vegetables and nuts may help people fall asleep faster, according to one of the most comprehensive analyses yet on diet and sleep.

Sleep architecture is essential for metabolic and cardiovascular health, yet the impact of day-to-day dietary variation on objective sleep physiology remains unclear. Using 4.8 thousand person-nights with real-time dietary logs and multi-stage wearable sleep recordings, we examined how prior-day nutrition relates to next-night sleep under free-living conditions. Higher fiber density was associated with increased restorative sleep, including +0.59 pp deep sleep, +0.76 pp REM sleep, −1.35 pp light sleep, and −1.14 bpm lower mean nocturnal heart rate. Greater plant diversity and higher whole-plant food intake were similarly associated with lower nocturnal heart rate (−0.72 to −0.94 bpm). Meal-timing behaviors primarily influenced sleep duration, sleep-onset latency, and autonomic tone: heavier evening meals were associated with +7.7 min longer total sleep time and +0.73 bpm higher nocturnal heart rate. In contrast, short-term variation in macronutrient energy distribution and micronutrient consumption showed no robust associations with sleep outcomes. When analyses were restricted to more extreme dietary contrasts, effect magnitudes increased while remaining directionally consistent. These findings indicate that routine daily dietary choices, particularly plant-forward composition and meal timing, have immediate and measurable effects on objective sleep architecture. ### Competing Interest Statement G.S., H.R., and Y.T.B are employees in Pheno.AI, a biomedical data science company from Tel-Aviv, Israel. E.S. is a paid consultant of Pheno.AI. The other authors declare no competing interests. ### Clinical Trial NCT05817734 ### Funding Statement E.S. is supported by the Crown Human Genome Center; Larson Charitable Foundation New Scientist Fund; Else Kroener Fresenius Foundation; White Rose International Foundation; Ben B. and Joyce E. Eisenberg Foundation; Nissenbaum Family; Marcos Pinheiro de Andrade and Vanessa Buchheim; Lady Michelle Michels; Aliza Moussaieff; and grants funded by the Minerva foundation with funding from the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research and by the European Research Council and the Israel Science Foundation. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: All participants signed an informed consent form after arrival to the research site. All identifying details of the participants were removed before the computational analysis. The 10K cohort study was conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Weizmann Institute of Science. [ClinicalTrials.gov][1] registration identifier: [NCT05817734][2]. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as [ClinicalTrials.gov][1]. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes Data in this paper is part of the Human Phenotype Project (HPP) and is accessible to researchers from universities and other research institutions at: <https://humanphenotypeproject.org/data-access> <https://github.com/mashaashkolnik/causal_framework> [1]: http://ClinicalTrials.gov [2]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT05817734&atom=%2Fmedrxiv%2Fearly%2F2026%2F02%2F18%2F2026.02.17.26346471.atom

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