A sleep expert has revealed how boiling a banana in a pot of hot water might help you get a better night's sleep.
As weird as it sounds, Dr Michael Breus - known as the Sleep Doctor online - has explained why his homemade 'hot banana water' contains nutrients that are good to take around 30-40 minutes before bed.
Appearing on The Diary Of A CEO podcast, the clinical psychologist says that magnesium supplementation 'is one of the best ones' you can take for sleep health.
"Our body doesn't actually produce it," Dr Breus said.
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"And by the way, you could eat a bushel of kale and still not get enough magnesium because here in the United States, the soil has been overtilled, which means the magnesium isn't in the soil.
"So it's not coming up through the root stocks and allowing people to have it.
"So a lot of people require magnesium supplementation."
The author of Beauty Sleep explained that 'bananas are loaded with magnesium, but it turns out it's not the fruit, it's the peel itself'.
And so he developed a recipe he calls 'hot banana water', which involves cutting a banana in half and boiling it in water for about five minutes.
"All this is is a regular old banana. So, what you do is you cut off the stem and cut it in half and then you drop it in to some boiling water," Dr Breus said.
"And you can see the banana has turned brown, right? It's been soaking in the boiling water. So, it's not really tea. It's just basically hot banana water."
He continued: "But with the banana from the skin, you also get these things called phytosteroids that actually help you absorb the magnesium better than if you just had it from a supplement."
Dr Breus says the effects will start to kick in around 25/35 minutes before sleep.
He warns, however, not to drink too much to risk waking up for a wee in the middle of the night.
"You can use this as a like an evening ritual, and you can make banana tea, and have it in the evening with, you know, [with] a biscuit, read a book and just be chill."
He also says you can put the fruit 'in anything' if you don't want to get that pure banana taste.
A supplement with your favourite tea, for example, would work well if you don't like bananas.
Topics: Health, Sleep, Food And Drink, YouTube, Podcast
Anish Vij