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DeborahBee
Raw Newbie
Hi everyone,
I have been raw for almost a year.
I have always needed a lot of sleep and felt incredibly tired and ratty when I woke up.
Although I am approaching 1 year raw, up until 2 weeks ago I did not notice an improvement in my sleep.
2 weeks ago I started waking up after 6 hours and feeling wide awake. I would go for a wee and then think “It’s five am. I can’t be ready to get up yet.” And I’d go back to bed. When I awoke 4 hours later I would have a splitting headache.
I realised that perhaps my sleeping pattern has changed and I should listen to my body (something that I’m getting better at).
This morning I woke up after 6 hours sleep and stayed up. I feel great, better than I have for a long time.
I was wondering what your experiences with sleep and raw diet are?
Comments
I have been about 75% raw for about 2 months. I immediately felt the benefit in my sleep. I fall asleep much easier, sleep better and wake much easier and with more energy. Even after giving up coffee!!! My suggestion would be to listen to your body. Recent studies show that 7 is the magic number when it comes to sleep. Maybe your body only needs 6 hours right now. When I trust my body, I am much happier. Good luck!
Yeah, I sleep a lot less these days, and i’m not even close to 100% raw. I think it’s because i eat fewer oils than I used to, though I try to eat some almonds, pepitas, flaxseeds regularly. I’m approaching 5-6 hours sleep a night these days. At first I was weirded out and like you I tried going back to sleep. Now, I’m used to it and get up at 3am and when I have nothing to do, I go jogging. It’s still feels weird but I’m cool with less sleep!
Thank you for your replies x
Has anyone else got a sleep experience to share?
I used to suffer from chronic insomnia, (literally since I was 4 years old), and nothing helped. Sleeping pills only seemed to make me hyperactive.
After 3 months raw, I started to sleep through the night. After just under a year now, I have not had any problems with insomnia, except for when I consume raw cacao regularly (which I don’t anymore).
It is amazing to go from constantly suffering from lack of sleep to suddenly be able to fall asleep easily and sleep through the night! It was a very, very unexpected, but certainly very welcome change.
My wife totally would wake up all of the time during the night before we starting changing to raw and now she falls asleep immediately and sleeps until we need to wake up. I sleep like a rock too but I am finding it harder to fall asleep—I’m guessing because I have so much energy! Sleep is definitely something that changed right away for me and I’m not even 100% raw yet.
I have a similar experience to elizabeth. I have had insomina on and off for as long as I can remember. I sleep so much better when I am following a mostly raw diet. I sometimes wake up because I am hungry, so I make sure to have something quick to grab (my favorite are a few slices of frozen banana). Now, on the occassions that I wake up at 4 or 5:00 AM, I just roll with it and find that I have had plenty of sleep!
Anyone who has had insomina understands how AWESOME it is to not go through that miserable experience that not only is uncomfortable at night, but ruins your whole next day.
Just another benefit of eating raw!!!
Within the first week I noticed the absence of waking up groggy in the morning. Although I still need about 9 hours, this is an improvement from the 11 or 12 that i used to need in order to function properly! I hope I get down to about 7 at some point, although I have only been high raw for 2 months.
Cheerydeb, I’ve been having almost exactly the same type of experience as you—I used to sleep fairly “normally” (about 7-9 hours, woke up feeling fine, but not terrible energetic). Now I generally wake up after 4-6 hours and am really, really awake. For a while I was trying to fight it and to go back to sleep, but usually that would end up in me staying awake for two hours, then falling back asleep and waking up a few hours later feeling really crappy. Even when I would get up, but not do something active (like read or surf the internet), this would happen (i.e., I’d get really groggy after a few hours, then go back to sleep). But the other day I just got up and took the dogs for a walk, and I felt terrific afterwards! I didn’t go back to sleep at all, and I felt great all day.
So yeah, I’m having the best luck by just listening to my body, too!