Near the end of the 19th century, “legal realists” in America had the nerve to suggest the decisions of judges were not always based on a dispassionate, clear-eyed consideration of the facts. Rather, they argued other things can decide the fate of an accused person. As Charlton Lewis commented in 1902:

“The term of imprisonment …for a particular convict depends far more upon the temper and digestion of the judge than upon considerations of vital justice”.

Welcome to the “Gastronomical School of Jurisprudence” and the idea that judicial decision-making is influenced by the digestive experiences of judges and, most notably, whether their stomachs are empty or full. In suggesting this they were acknowledging that judges are human and prone to biases and prejudices that can be biologically triggered (through feelings of hunger).

Not surprisingly, many lawyers were upset by this because it suggested legal practice was not the objective, exact science they believed it to be. Rather, the law was being portrayed as a subjective, intuitive art that could be controlled by bodily processes (hunger again) and its effects on the mind. With their profession under attack, a debate began that continues to this day.

The continuing judgement on eating and judgement

Whilst it has been 100+ years since the first “what-the-judge-had-for-breakfast” arguments appeared, interest in the phenomena is undiminished and serious research continues.

For example, in a recent Israeli study, 1,112 decisions made by parole board justices were systematically reviewed. Analysed against each judge’s two daily food breaks, the researchers found that favourable rulings decreased from 65% to almost zero within a court session, and then recovered after a break. This pattern of results led to the conclusion, in line with other research, that judicial decision-making can be swayed by factors (like, you guessed it, hunger) that have no place in legal decisions.

Whilst behavioural scientists continue to explore this legal phenomenon, the link between nutrition and decision-making has been widely explored in other fields. Indeed, nutrition-performance research has come a long way. I know this because – in 2009 – when gathering lecture materials for a postgraduate course I was writing on peak performance, I couldn’t find much.

Convinced I was looking in the wrong places, I went to see a senior academic I knew could help. Alas, he couldn’t. “Sorry, there’s not very much” was his reply. So, my lecture was limited to a brief summary of studies that mainly used glucose drinks to explore this relationship. Encouragingly, studies in this area are more advanced now and include explanations about how nutrition might impact performance.

How what goes into your mouth effects what goes on in your head

In one interesting European study, 76 participants were assigned to two groups to eat breakfasts with different carbohydrate-protein combinations. Knowing that macronutrients can affect neurotransmitter dynamics (and, with it, our behaviour), the researchers wanted to see if participants’ social decision-making would differ based on consuming a high- versus low-carbohydrate meal.

It did. After eating breakfast, participants played a game that involved judging the fairness of financial proposals received from other players, and then deciding on whether to accept or reject them. Whilst it was found that the high-carb group made more rejection decisions than the low-carb group, the research team went a step further and noted that an amino-acid, tyrosine, was significantly lower in the high-carb group (and higher in the low-carb group). This is relevant because tyrosine supports dopamine production, and dopamine encourages social interaction.

So, what’s the point? Simple. There are reasons to believe what you eat may positively or negatively affect how you behave towards others. Given how social we are, that seems rather important!

Good sleeping helps with good eating

Talk to people about what helps them to be at their best and most would say a good night’s sleep. Indeed, in this regard, eating and sleeping are inextricably linked.

Just ask any shift worker.

Shift work disorder is a condition characterised by disordered sleep patterns. For a shift worker, circadian disruptions make it harder to recover when fatigued, to stay physically active, and to maintain a healthy diet. As a result, shift workers are 17% to 25% more likely to be overweight or obese than other workers, according to epidemiologists.

As it turns out, shift work tends to stack the deck against shift workers. Amongst other things, their sleep routines make it harder for them to manage their food intake because the hormones responsible for feelings of emptiness (ghrelin) and fullness (leptin) are thrown out of balance. In simple terms, shift workers tend to feel hungry more often and full less often. So, they eat more.

Another unhelpful form of sleep disturbance is social jetlag. This occurs when non-shift workers maintain normal sleeping patterns during the week, but not on weekends. This milder circadian disturbance results in poorer mealtime choices, both in terms of total calories and nutrient profile.

As such, sleeping well appears to make eating well much less of a challenge. But sleep has a far more important contribution to the fuelling process than that.

Sleep allows the magic to happen!

When food and fluids pass our lips, an incredible amount must happen before it can do us any good. Most obviously it must be broken down. Way down. A total deconstruction of our meal or snack (a.k.a. catabolism) and its construction into molecules the body can use to generate energy and maintain itself (a.k.a. anabolism) . This, very crudely, is what we know as metabolism.

Sleep gives the body a metabolic window of opportunity. If our diet is good, 8 hours of snoozing gives our body a chance to complete the trillions of chemical processes needed to keep us in top working order. Processes that – for example – deliver nutrients to help muscle fibres repair, keep neurones and nerve cells in good working order, bolster the immune system, and restore levels of adenosine triphosphate (our basic unit of energy) in cells throughout our body. It’s all highly complex but processes like these require good fuel supplies, which is why we need to eat well.

However, a balanced diet only provides the potential for a high functioning human. As many processes only occur during specific stages of the sleep cycle, short-sleeping means our time in different stages is limited. This wastes the potential of our food, as less of the biological ‘magic’ can happen.

Eating and sleeping. Sleeping and eating

Based on what we now know, if we think about one, we should really think about the other. From a practical standpoint, this offers some clues about how we might improve our health and performance. For example, we know food choices and appetite are better managed whenever we align sleep to our body clock.

So, why not start there? Simple, no-cost changes. In bed at 11 and up by 7, as often as possible. Of course, simple doesn’t mean easy.

For one thing, that’s not always possible. Our lives are not perfectly regular. But the bigger challenge is often our attitude towards sleep. If, like Margaret Thatcher, we believe that “sleep is for wimps”, we’re unlikely to prioritise such a change.

But if we believe that poor health and patchy performance also make us wimps, then you’d have to ask…how can we not?

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