Brad's Raw Made Easy: The Fast, Delicious Way to Lose Weight, Optimize Health, and Live Mostly in the Raw

by Brad Gruno

Even more shocking, according to IMS Health, a health care services company, Americans filled sixty million prescriptions for sleeping pills in 2011, up from forty-seven million in 2006.

At the time I figured that my insomnia had to do with stress, but I’ve since come to realize that while stress did play a part, the primary reason for my disrupted sleep was what I had been putting inside my body, like the big bowl of ice cream that I relished as an evening snack or my nightly glass of red wine, or the smoke or two right before bed.

Bananas contain tryptophan, the same amino acid found in turkey, as do almonds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds. According to the National Sleep Foundation, foods with a combination of a natural sugar content as well as tryptophan often help people feel sleepy. Pumpkin seeds help you drift off to deep sleep due to their high magnesium content; magnesium is a well-known and safe mind and muscle relaxant. If you have trouble sleeping, try eating a small amount of these foods before bed, as they should help. I also incorporated a few other techniques into my life that helped me get more restful sleep. A few hours before bed, I switched to drinking water only, to make sure I was hydrated and that my digestive system would not have to work overtime.