If you want to sleep more soundly, eat better during the day,  a new study suggests.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center decided to perform an experiment to see if what people eat during the day affects the quality of their sleep.

 They recruited 26 adults - 13 men and 13 women - who had a normal weight and an average age of 35 years. During five nights in a sleep lab, participants spent nine hours in bed from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., sleeping for seven hours and 35 minutes on average per night.

The researchers also analyzed their sleep data according to whether the participants ate controlled meals prepared by a nutritionist during the day or whether they were allowed eat whatever they wished.

The study found that those who ate the controlled menu, which was high in fiber, and low in sugar and fat, fell asleep more quickly and slept more soundly than those who ate freely. On the other hand, eating less fiber, more saturated fat and more sugar was associated with lighter, less restorative, and more disrupted sleep.

"Our main finding was that diet quality influenced sleep quality.  It was most surprising that a single day of greater fat intake and lower fiber could influence sleep parameters,” said lead author Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, or the study, which appears in the Journal of Sleep Medicine.