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Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
How ‘Jeopardy!' whiz Ken Jennings learned to make ‘Kennections' everywhere and why he fears AI
Ken Jennings wants you to know he didn't name his trivia game 'Kennections.' 'It's really an unpleasant name,' the 'Jeopardy!' champion turned host says of the quizzes now published weekly by Mental Floss. 'We have to lead with that. It was suggested by an editor at Parade Magazine, but it doesn't look good or sound good.' But Jennings loves the quizzes themselves, which are now collected (kellected?) in 'The Complete Kennections.' The Simon & Schuster release, on shelves July 29, follows earlier Jennings books that included more writing. Those include: 'Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs,' 'Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks,' 'Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids' and '100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife.' Jennings recently spoke about his books, AI and why trivia matters. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Was writing books always a goal? I was an English major in college. I wanted to write and to teach, but writing didn't seem like a practical choice. I was also doing a double major in computer science, and in 2000 it was absurdly easy to get a job at a friend's startup, even if you were a terrible programmer, which I was. Writing about geography and myths and fabled places of the afterlife all seem to make sense coming from the brain of a 'Jeopardy!' champion. It's easy to imagine the same kid in an elementary school library, reading about these things in the World Book encyclopedia during a rainy recess. That's my origin story. I was just a sponge for weird information. That's my origin story right there. I thought of 'Jeopardy!' as a fun, crazy summer and did not think it would be my life, so I tried making each book less about 'Jeopardy!' and trivia than the one before it. Is the information in your books trivial, or do you think it's important to get readers to understand geography and the way our culture passes down myths and tales? I'm a believer that trivia is not just a bar pastime, or even a way for little Lisa Simpsons to get told they're smart into adulthood. I always felt trivia was kind of a universal social good, a way to enjoy cultural literacy. I feel I'm part of the last generation that had to justify having nerdy interests. It was kind of shameful and made you the punchline of jokes in movie comedies and stand-up. Today, it seems self-evident to everyone younger than us that, well, of course you would just be obsessive about lunchboxes or about 'Battlestar Galactica' or fossils. That's totally normalized, and it's actually good. But I've also been mourning the loss of generalists, people who knew a little bit about everything, which is what 'Jeopardy!' celebrates, but it's not fashionable. We live in a siloed society of specialists. And I really think we'd be better off if everybody knew a little bit about everything. I do think it's good to know trivia is not something that makes you better than other people. It doesn't exist to show off or even to make you feel smarter about yourself. Ideally, it should bring people together and make the world more interesting and make you a more sparkling conversationalist. 'Jeopardy!' and your books strive to make learning facts fun. Is there a lesson there for educators? I think that's the beauty of trivia. I wrote a series of books for kids with amazing facts because I liked that kind of book when I was a kid. And you can see it in a classroom, when you see kids' eyes light up about information and about serious subjects and about knowledge when it's presented in a fun way, especially with narrative. Narrative is the secret sauce. It just makes kids think the world is an amazing adventure and you just have to be curious and dig into it. But that gets beaten out of us, and then a lot of us at some point just specialize in one thing. You need to remind people that learning is not a chore. If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong. And trivia is very good at that. Every good 'Jeopardy!' clue tells a story in some way, saying, here's why you should want to know this or here's what this might have to do with life and the reason why this is not random minutia, which I think is a lot of people's stereotype of trivia nerds. A trivia question can help you connect it to other things. Trivia is just an art of connections. That's certainly true in your 'Kennections' book. I grew up doing crosswords, riddles and rebuses. I've always liked trivia that rewards not just the recall of the right fact but has a little more mental clockwork involved so you have to solve some puzzles. You have to analyze the clue and figure out why it exists and what it's asking or what it's not asking, what was included, what was omitted. There's a lot of analysis that can kind of lead you to the right answer by deduction, even if you don't know the right fact off the top of your head. One half of your brain is just trying to recall these five facts, but you've got this other half that's trying to figure it out and step back and take the big picture. And it might be something outside the box. The art of it is finding five things that fit in the category but that can have double meanings: Commodore is both a computer and a member of a Lionel Richie combo. You write that 'Kennections' consumes your life — you go into a bagel store and wonder if you can build five questions out of the flavors. Is the problem that in your day-to-day life, you're constantly seeing things and thinking things this way? Or is the problem that you can't say this out loud because you'll make your family crazy? That's something I learned early — that being this trivia-loving kid has the potential to be annoying. But my kids know what they're getting from me at this point. And they both have the gene themselves. One is obsessed with Major League Baseball, and one is obsessed with the history of Disney theme parks, and they have encyclopedic knowledge every bit as awe-inspiring and freakish as I had as a kid. And I'm proud of that. Do you worry about living in a culture that's so polarized that facts aren't even universally received and where AI takes over people's need to be curious, allowing students to take shortcuts in learning? I think an oligarch class is going to deliver us a combination of both, where the AI will not only create reliance on it but give us bad, counterfactual information about important issues. And it's really something I take seriously. It's really something we need to be pushing back on now. You don't want to trust an AI summary of a subject or AI's take on an issue without understanding who controls that algorithm and why they want you to hear that information.
The Spinoff
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending July 25
The top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Better the Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster, $27) Second week in a row! 2 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, $60) The former prime minister's memoir. 3 The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb (Simon & Schuster, $40) Good Readers are mostly digging it, giving this latest Lamb a 4.44 rating on 20,333 votes so far. However sounds like you must brace yourself for the beginning: 'One of the most shocking and heartbreaking first chapters I've ever read,' says one reviewer. 4 Polkinghorne: Inside the Trial of the Century by Steve Braunias (Allen & Unwin, $38) One of the most sensationalised court cases in recent memory. 5 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin, $38) Brilliant, propulsive, warm, generous novel about growing up in Grey Lynn in the 80s. 6 Strange Pictures by Uketsu (Pushkin Press, $37) A murder mystery involving pictures as clues. 7 The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Jonathan Cape, $38) Vuong's much-praised, Oprah-approved second novel. 8 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) Rightful winner of this year's Women's Prize for fiction. 9 Mahi A Atua by Mark & Diana Kopua (Huia Publishers, $55) Huia have been busy! Here's the blurb for this latest publication: 'Mahi a Atua is a Māori wellbeing framework based around storytelling. Grounded in a Mori Māori view, this approach is designed to foster transformation and systemic change and indigenise practices, institutions and personal and professional spaces. The knowledge, messages and principles within purākau spark conversations aimed at promoting wellbeing, consciousness raising and healing.' 10 Fulvia by Kaarina Parker (Echo Publishing, $37) Caeden at Unity Books Auckland says that 'this novel brings something bold, new, and refreshing to ancient world retellings. Parker has done her research to make sure her writing is as authentic as possible, while telling a story that's scarily appropriate for the current political moment. An excellent novel of ambition, power, and infamy.' WELLINGTON 1 The Stars Are A Million Glittering Worlds by Gina Butson (Allen & Unwin, $38) 'In January 2023, I wrote a story and named it for a mountain in Guatemala. But the deep-sea root of the story was something my mother told me a year or so before she died. . .' Butson wrote about the various inspirations for her debut novel r ight here on The Spinoff. 2 Stone & Sky #10 The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (Orion Books, $38) The latest in the bestselling detective series. 3 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, $60) 4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 'Chidgey's latest novel is uncannily similar to Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (which she has not read),' writes Claire Mabey in her rave review. 'It takes similar aim at British identity by puncturing its society with the normalisation of skewed medical ethics. What both novels have in common are questions of nature versus nurture and the eternal thought exercise of what does it mean to possess a soul? The two writers share an interest in the dehumanising potential of such questions. Both Ishiguro (one of the greatest novelists of all time) and Chidgey (fast becoming one of the greats herself) investigate how whole societies, entire countries, can enter a path of gross moral corruption one person, one concession, at a time.' 5 M ātauranga Māori by Hirini Moko Mead (Huia Publishers, $45) Everything you need to know about mātauranga from an authority on the subject. 6 Polkinghorne: Inside the Trial of the Century by Steve Braunias (Allen & Unwin, $38) 7 Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Macmillan, $40) She's baaackkkkk. Shark attack victim and Zuck victim Wynn-Williams' memoir contains some unsurprising but still fascinating/horrifying perspectives on working for Meta and the people who run it. Read a review of the book on The Spinoff, here. A community of women and a post-apocalyptic world. 9 Is a River Alive? By Robert Macfarlane (Penguin, $65) Acclaimed nature writer Robert Macfarlane explores the nature of rivers and how people relate to them. 10 Pūkeko Who-Keko? by Toby Morris (Puffin, $21) Full of delightful gags, linguistic play and wonderful illustrations, this is a bird book you can get behind. The Spinoff Books section is proudly brought to you by Unity Books and Creative New Zealand. Visit Unity Books online today.
Hamilton Spectator
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Toronto Star bestsellers: Drew Hayden Taylor's play ‘Cottagers and Indians' joins fiction lists
Clearly, summer is a time for rediscovery. How else to explain how a Canadian book that has never made the Star's bestseller lists suddenly popped up this week in both the original and Canadian fiction rankings, at No. 5 and No. 2 respectively. I can't say why 'Cottagers and Indians' — the book version of a play by author and humourist Drew Hayden Taylor , first published in 2019 — has lately captured readers' attention. Suffice to say it has. In the play — inspired by a real-life dispute — Hayden Taylor dramatizes a tussle over land and water rights in Ontario cottage country between an Indigenous man and a Toronto woman. Hayden Taylor, who is Ojibway from Curve Lake First Nation, isn't the only Indigenous author with an older book on the lists. Jesse Wente 's memoir 'Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance,' which is in part about growing up in Toronto the son of an American father and an Anishinaabe mother, is back on the original non-fiction list at No. 6 and the Canadian list at No. 5. It's the book's first appearance on original non-fiction since September 2021, although it was a regular presence on Canadian non-fiction that year. Hayden Taylor has even more company on the Canadian fiction list, where Waubgeshig Rice 's 'Moon of the Crusted Snow' (2018) returns at No. 6; Jessica Johns ' 'Bad Cree' (2023) at No. 8; and 'Medicine Walk' (2014) by the late Richard Wagamese , at No. 10. ORIGINAL FICTION 1. One Golden Summer , Carley Fortune, Viking (11)* 2. An Inside Job , Daniel Silva, Harper (1) 3. The Woman in Suite 11 , Ruth Ware, Simon & Schuster (2) 4. Don't Let Him In , Lisa Jewell, Atria (4) 5. Cottagers and Indians , Drew Hayden Taylor, Talonbooks (1) 6. Atmosphere , Taylor Jenkins Reid, Doubleday Canada (7) 7. The Enchanted Greenhouse , Sarah Beth Durst, Bramble (1) 8. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Simon & Schuster (12) 9. Broken Country , Clare Leslie Hall, Simon & Schuster (16) 10. Every Summer After , Carley Fortune, Viking (11) ORIGINAL NON-FICTION 1. The Idaho Four , James Patterson, Vicky Ward, Little, Brown (1) 2. Anatomy of a Cover-Up , Paul Palango, Random House Canada (6) 3. The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt, Penguin (55) 4. The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Scribner (34) 5. One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, McClelland & Stewart (20) 6. Unreconciled , Jesse Wente, Penguin Canada (2) 7. Everything Is Tuberculosis , John Green (7) 8. Abundance , Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, Avid Reader (6) 9. 52 Ways to Reconcile , David A. Robertson, McClelland & Stewart (9) 10. The Crisis of Canadian Democracy , Andrew Coyne, Sutherland House (4) CANADIAN FICTION 1. One Golden Summer , Carley Fortune, Viking 2. Cottagers and Indians , Drew Hayden Taylor, Talonbooks 3. Every Summer After , Carley Fortune, Viking 4. Valentine in Montreal , Heather O'Neill, Arizona O'Neill, HarperCollins Canada 5. A Most Puzzling Murder , Bianca Marais, Mira 6. Moon of the Crusted Snow , Waubgeshig Rice, ECW 7. Finding Flora , Elinor Florence, Simon & Schuster 8. Bad Cree , Jessica Johns, HarperCollins Canada 9. Everyone Here Is Lying , Shari Lapena, Seal 10. Medicine Walk , Richard Wagamese, Emblem CANADIAN NON-FICTION 1. Value(s), Mark Carney, Signal 2. Anatomy of a Cover-Up , Paul Palango, Random House Canada 3. Outsider , Brett Popplewell, HarperCollins Canada 4. One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, McClelland & Stewart 5. Unreconciled , Jesse Wente, Penguin Canada 6. 52 Ways to Reconcile , David A. Robertson, McClelland & Stewart 7. Murder, Madness and Mayhem , Mike Browne, HarperCollins Canada 8. A History of Canada in Ten Maps , Adam Shoalts, Penguin Canada 9. The Massey Murder , Charlotte Gray, HarperCollins Canada 10. Lessons From Cats for Surviving Fascism , Stewart Reynolds, Grand Central CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULT 1. Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins, Scholastic 2. This Place , Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sonny Assu, Brandon Mitchell, etc., Highwater 3. Love You Forever , Robert Munsch, Sheila McGraw, Firefly 4. Dinosaurs Before Dark , Mary Pope Osborne, Sal Murdocca, Random House Books for Young Readers 5. The Summer I Turned Pretty , Jenny Han, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 6. Karen's Ghost (Baby-Sitters Little Sister #11) , D.K. Yingst, Ann M. Martin, Graphix 7. Binding 13, Chloe Walsh, Bloom 8. We Were Liars , E. Lockhart, Ember 9. Borders , Thomas King, Natasha Donovan, HarperCollins 10. Fearless, Lauren Roberts, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers BUSINESS AND PERSONAL FINANCE 1. Atomic Habits , James Clear, Avery 2. The Psychology of Money , Morgan Housel, Harriman House 3. Rich Dad Poor Dad , Robert T. Kiyosaki, Plata 4. How Countries Go Broke , Ray Dalio, Avid Reader 5. No More Tears , Gardiner Harris, Random House 6. Dare to Lead , Brené Brown, Random House 7. Surrounded by Idiots , Thomas Erikson, St. Martin's Essentials 8. Start With Why , Simon Sinek, Portfolio 9. Radical Candor (updated) , Kim Scott, St. Martin's 10. In This Economy? , Kyla Scanlon, Morgan Housel, Currency * Weeks on list The bestseller lists are compiled by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited from information provided by BookNet Canada's national sales tracking service, BNC SalesData.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, July 27
1. An Inside Job by Daniel Silva (Harper: $32) An art restorer and legendary spy must solve the perfect crime. 2. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 3. The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey: $29) Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft. 4. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 5. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 6. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 7. Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau: $30) A suspenseful family drama about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence. 8. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries. 9. The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books: $30) A young father grapples with tragedy and the search for redemption. 10. Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild (St. Martin's Press: $29) A sweeping love story explores the price of a new beginning. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead Books: $28) The true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea. 3. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A study of the barriers to progress in the U.S. 4. The Mission by Tim Weiner (Mariner Books: $35) A history of the modern CIA featuring interviews with former directors, spies and other insiders. 5. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 6. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. 7. Lessons From Cats for Surviving Fascism by Stewart Reynolds (Grand Central Publishing: $13) A guide to channeling feline wisdom in the face of authoritarian nonsense. 8. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 9. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator) (Scribner: $20) On gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. 10. Who Knew by Barry Diller (Simon & Schuster: $30) A frank memoir from one of America's top businessmen. … 1. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 2. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine: $20) 3. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 4. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 5. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Crown: $19) 6. Circe by Madeline Miller (Back Bay: $20) 7. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 8. Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley: $20) 9. A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (Berkley: $19) 10. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner: $20) … 1. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions: $22) 2. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin: $21) 3. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 4. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 5. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 6. The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger (Harper Perennial: $20) 7. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Harper Perennial Modern Classics: $24) 8. Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch (Tarcher: $20) 9. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 10. All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley (Simon & Schuster: $19)
UPI
22-07-2025
- Health
- UPI
Eat better to better, Columbia researcher suggests in cookbook
1 of 3 | Complex carbohydrates and fiber from fresh and fruits and vegetables are a key part of a diet designed to promote better laid out in a new cookbook authored by a top U.S. nutrition researcher. File Photo by Debbie Hill/ UPI | License Photo ST. PAUL, Minn., July 22 (UPI) -- A top U.S. nutrition researcher is translating her expertise on the connections between diet, better sleep and heart health from the pages of dry academic journals into a colorful mass-market cookbook. Marie-Pierre St-Onge, a professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, along with recipe expert Kat Craddock, have chronicled dozens of recipes and lay out a 28-day meal plan designed for better sleep health in Eat Better, Sleep Better, published by Simon & Schuster earlier this year. St-Onge in recent years has published studies exploring various angles of the connection between what we eat and how we sleep -- a field that remains poorly understood even as doctors have named lack of proper sleep as one the top risk factors for heart disease. Her work has mainly centered on examining the relationship between sleep, weight management and cardiometabolic disease risk. She has also performed well-received research on "functional foods," or foods that offer health benefits, and on how ingredients affect weight management and cardiovascular disease risk prevention. Now with Eat Better, Sleep Better, she and Craddock have produced an elegant, 288-page cookbook packed with 75 recipes meant to give users an opportunity to shape their diets around foods that promote better sleep. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it prioritizes protein sources that are rich in tryptophan, the amino acid that serves as the building block for the sleep-regulating hormones melatonin and serotonin. Tryptophan, of course, is found in turkey and is famous for producing drowsiness after a full Thanksgiving Day dinner. But the book goes well beyond that, highlighting several other ingredients tied to healthier sleep, such as omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in salmon; complex carbohydrates found in oats and buckwheat; and spices like ginger and turmeric. For example, the book's recipe for savory lamb stew notes that lamb is exceptionally high in tryptophan and is also an excellent source of several essential nutrients, including zinc and vitamin B6, "two of the four essential nutrients involved in the body's production of serotonin and melatonin." Similarly, the recipe for chia pudding identifies tiny chia seeds as "a sleep-supporting superfood," not only rich in protein and tryptophanm but also in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, magnesium, fiber, complex carbohydrates, vitamin B6 and zinc. St-Onge told UPI one of her main goals with Eat Better, Sleep Better is to translate her scientific research on sleep into a more popular format at at time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 40% of U.S. adults are getting insufficient sleep. "We do all this work and always publish it just in scientific journals, and my book agent said, 'But the public wants to know, too, it should be something that's available for them as well,' and I thought, he kind of has a point," she said. "We need to disseminate the work that we do, the findings that we have. "Especially in this day and age when the work that we do is funded entirely from taxpayer dollars or donor dollars, if we're talking about the American Heart Association, and it's really a return on their investment -- the knowledge that we can impart to them." St-Onge said she also finds that nutritionists sometimes have a misconception about the ability of people to translate esoteric facts about micronutrients into real-world diets, especially if it means changing those diets. "If you're saying eat more plant protein or eat more fiber, they'll ask, 'Where can I find fiber and plant protein?' And I'll say, well, buckwheat is a great grain. 'Buckwheat? What's that? And how I am going to put it to use in my own diet?' "I thought it was wonderful that I able to get paired with Kat, my co-author, who is in the food world and the recipe development world, and talking more about the application of nutrition in real life. I like recipes, and I also like to cook, but I've never been trained in recipe development or anything like that. So it was nice to be able to be part of that process." Craddock would develop the recipes and send them to St-Onge, who would then try them at home and offer some additional suggestions. One of the reasons there's a need for a sleep-centered cookbook is because it's not just what's eaten before bedtime that affects the quality of sleep, but rather what's consumed throughout the whole day, and over even longer periods, that counts in the body's ability to make melatonin. "We're saying sleep is complicated, it's not just about what happens at night, it's about what happens during the day," she said. In the background of it all is the risk that poor sleep poses to heart health. The American Heart Association in 2022 added sleep to its list of "Life's Essential 8," the eight top markers for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health, calling proper sleep "vital to your heart and brain health." That assessment is shared by Dr. Kin M. Yuen, spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a sleep medicine specialist at UCSF Health in San Francisco. "A balanced diet with a healthy amount of lean protein, carbohydrates, including fruits and vegetables, starches and healthy fats, along with nuts and seeds -- for those without allergies -- is the most optimal" for healthy sleep, she told UPI in an emailed statement. Generally, she added, sleep specialists support their nutritionist and cardiology colleagues in advocating for a diet that may include plant based protein, leafy greens and lean animal proteins, such as chicken, fish and seafood, depending on the individual's sensitivity and tolerance. Yuen said it's also important for people with sensitivities or intolerances to specific substances to avoid or limit those food groups, as they may disturb or fragment sleep. "Therefore, those with lactose intolerance may have better sleep by ingesting fewer dairy products or using lactose-free dairy only," she said. "For those with diagnosed celiac disease or gluten sensitivities, sleep may be improved without gluten in their diet, which may cause bloating, stomach upset or nausea, and sometimes weight loss." Ultimately, she cautioned, no one diet plan works for everyone. "Individual differences and allergic tendencies may limit the intake of a particular food group. Viral, bacterial illness and antibiotic use may make a regular diet not feasible," Yuen warned. Nevertheless, "good sleep and healthy diets go very well together," she concluded. "Adequate exercise also ensures sleep quality is optimized. Adequate daytime sunlight and devoting enough time to sleep will help ensure that the quality of sleep is optimal."
