Wellness Tips Celebrity Chef Giada De Laurentiis Swears By For A Great Night's Sleep

Giada De Laurentiis has been busy since leaving her two-decade stint on the Food Network in 2023. Her exit left her more time to devote to her food and lifestyle brand, Giadzy, where she offers recipes, travel tips, and Giada-approved products such as olive oils, sauces, and Italian cookies. She launched her own line of pasta in 2023 and a gluten-free pasta line in 2024.

At age 53, Giada knows the importance of quality sleep to keep her going. She credits an evening bath and a healthy dinner with protein with helping her sleep better. She also engages in other rituals in the morning and afternoon to temper her stressful life so she can sleep better. For example, she firmly plants her feet on the floor when getting out of bed in the morning.

"It's really just a grounding technique — I plant my feet there and I feel and notice them while taking a few deep breaths," she writes on her blog. "It takes just a minute, but it kicks off my day with a better mindset." Giada also takes relaxing walks with her dogs and sometimes does jumping jacks to help shake off anxiety to help her sleep. She also loves to cook for her family without the cameras rolling, but you won't find her indulging in her sweet Italian desserts as often as she used to.

In her 40s, Giada suffered from monthly sinus infections, taking courses of antibiotics so she could keep up with her demanding schedule on the Food Network. She told The View that her regular doctors couldn't figure out why she kept getting sick. She realized food, particularly her sugar addiction, got in the way of her health.

Her book, "Eat Better, Feel Better," offers a three-day reboot to help reset the body. Once she began focusing on her gut health, she noticed a change in her sleep. "I started sleeping through the night, sleeping more soundly, and being able to fall asleep," she told Shondaland. According to a 2019 study in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, the more added sugar in your diet, the poorer the quality of your sleep.

She focuses on protein for her evening meal, telling the Food Network, "If I don't eat protein at night, I don't sleep well." It seems that adding more protein to your diet might help you sleep better, according to a 2020 review in Nutrients. People who got more than seven hours of sleep each night tended to have more protein in their diet and fewer carbs and fat compared to poor sleepers. The researchers believe that the more tryptophan found in a person's food, the better that person's sleep might be.

Giada knows the importance of a good wind-down routine before her head hits the pillow. If she has a long day, she likes to take a bath. She writes in her blog, "Curate a lovely environment for yourself — with music and candles, if you like — and just allow yourself some solid time to soak in the hot water. It gets your body ready for sleep and, for me, it helps feel like the stresses of the day are literally 'washing away.'" If a bath isn't feasible, she turns to a magnesium-based mineral supplement to calm her nerves before bed.

Research backs her up. A 2019 clinical review in Sleep Medicine Reviews combined and analyzed data from 13 studies and found that taking a 10-minute warm shower one or two hours before bedtime can improve your sleep quality and sleep efficiency (the time in bed when you're actually sleeping). You might find yourself falling asleep faster after a warm bath. The researchers believe that the warm temperature helps the body cool down more quickly, leading to better sleep. Just make sure you don't take a bath right after eating. That can disrupt your digestion.