Thanks a bunch @Guywholikessleep
Any recommendations on how to sleep longer?
How about re how to fall asleep again if waking up towards the end of the night?
Last year I’ve more occasionally been waking up after 6.5 to 7.5 hours even if I had wanted and could continue to sleeping for 8.5 or so.
For myself - I use melatonin (5 mg slow release) to enhance overall sleep structure. Not to get to sleep. At 69 - sleep fragmentation, particularly the last 4 hours segment and rem related, is of a lesser quality. So I use melatonin to increase sleep spindles and sleep quality. Works to some degree.
Melatonin and the Circadian Regulation of Sleep Initiation, Consolidation, Structure, and the Sleep EEG “Administration of higher doses of melatonin (5 mg or more) prior to nocturnal sleep results in an increase in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. These data demonstrate that melatonin exerts effects on the main characteristics of human sleep, that is, latency to sleep onset, sleep consolidation, slow waves, sleep spindles, an M sleep.”
I learn a lot from your concise commentary!
In terms of sleeping longer, I would ask first if you are practicing sleep hygeine. Things such as hot baths/showers before bed, not drinking caffeine within 8 hours before bed, not drinking/eating 2-3 hours before bed, turning off electronic screens 1-2 hours before bed, etc.
If yes, then you could try magnesium or L theanine as a supplement and see if that helps. But I would say if you are getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night and not feeling tired in the mornings, then you really don’t need extra sleep.
I didn’t talk about it in my initial post, but 7-9 hours of sleep a night is well within the normal sleep range. Unfortunately the average adult currently gets less than 7 hours of sleep when I last looked at sleep stastitics, so that means the average person isn’t optimizing their sleep. Age is also a factor and other things can influence someones sleep duration, hard to tell due to individual variability.
Its perfectly normal to have awakening during the night, and its normal to have nights were you get less than 7 hours and sometimes more than 8 hours of sleep. If you have been feeling fine and sleeping fine, with no snoring or feeling super tired during the day, then I wouldn’t worry about your sleep duration too much, just as long as you are getting an average between 7-8 hours nightly for the most part. Another problem can also be the timing of your sleep. You could have genetic preferance for being a certain sleep phenotype( known as chronotype). Here is a quick questionare to find out your chronotype( https://chronotype-self-test.info/index.php?sid=61524&newtest=Y ). If you are trying to go asleep against your natural circadian rhythm, then your going to have issues staying awake or falling asleep along with staying asleep. Melatonin can help reset this timing. A good way to explain this could be night shift workers. We have a natural circadian drive to sleep during the night and stay awake during the day( we are diurnal creatures). What happens during night shift work, is that your circadian rhythm gets unsynched(makes sense since you aren’t following your natural rhythm in this scenario), but it gets even further complicated by the fact that when you try to go to bed during the day, you have a natural circadian drive to be awake. Essentially, while you may be able to sleep you actually fight against this sleep naturally due to our circadian rhythm, so you experience issues with staying asleep that is commonly seen in people who work shift work or night shift.
Another thing too, is how are we enhancing sleep? It’s an interesting concept, because what would you be enhancing? We measure sleep quality based on something called delta power. It is the energy of a wave in a specific frequency( the delta wave frequency in this case). In simplier terms, its the strength of cortical neurons firing synchronously during NREM sleep. Our thoughts are the greater the Delta power seen during NREM sleep, the greater sleep intensity and quality one is having. But again this is kind of hard to measure accurately. (Here is a paper that talks about different ways to measure sleep pressure.
(Period-Amplitude Analysis Reveals Wake-Dependent Changes in the Electroencephalogram during Sleep Deprivation - PMC) )
What exactly would we need to enhance in order to enhance sleep, especially when we know there are local differences in sleep states that can be brain region dependent. In other words, what exactly would you have to change in order to enhance sleep? Is it a specific brain region? A specific molecule? Electrical activity? Etc. Then on top of that, what sleep would it be enhancing? Would it be sleep in a local region or global sleep? Again gets very complicated.
Anyways, long story short, we don’t really know ways to enhance sleep in normal sleeping individuals. Focus on sleep hygeine and how you subjectively feel.
Sleeping in socks might be a simple sleep enhancer:
https://podcasts.ufhealth.org/wearing-socks-to-bed-can-improve-your-sleep-2/
It might seem socks would make you too toasty. But counterintuitively, researchers say, socks help lower core temperatures, a process that assists sleep.
Chilly feet can raise the temperature by sending more blood, and heat, to core areas, according to the Cleveland Clinic, which explains: “So, what does adding in a fluffy pair of socks do? Those cuddly duds warm your feet, relaxing and widening blood vessels that constricted while cold. This improved blood circulation in your overall body helps release more heat through your skin.”
Dr. Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist, says he has been prescribing the sock method to couples with sleep compatibility issues. Breus, a self-described “sleep matchmaker,” would recommend the partner who feels colder at night wear socks to bed.
Consider taking glycine for sleep (@desertshores uses?)
But “At low doses, glycine has been found to activate mTOR, which is a key regulator of cell growth, proliferation, and survival. This activation can lead to increased protein synthesis and cell growth. On the other hand, high doses of glycine have been shown to inhibit mTOR signaling, which can suppress cell growth and proliferation”
So what is a high dose?
3gm at bedtime, triggers MTOR instead of autophagy? at time of sleep?
@RapAdmin thoughts?
Are there any tips and tricks that improve exactly the duration and continuity of the deep sleep???
Anyone have a perspective on this - seems like they have done some randomized trials, etc. @Joseph_Lavelle @desertshores @John_Hemming @adssx @Guywholikessleep @Jonas @Elizabeth_Kirby @Bettywhitetest
Doesn’t looks crazy expensive compared to other things.
Marketing is of course 2024 slick:
And they have a great founding team and scientists
Alongside Perry, who’s best known for inventing the ultrasound-based wireless charging technology uBeam, the founding Elemind team also includes Ed Boyden, Ph.D., a serial neurotech founder who helped start Cognito Therapeutics, as well as Known Medicine and Iota Biosciences alum Ryan Neely, Ph.D., in addition to a handful of other neuroscience and AI experts.
Here are some other papers
In the years leading up to its primetime debut, the scientists behind Elemind have conducted a handful of studies to back their technological approach.
In one, the results of which were published in Nature Communications in 2021, the electric medicine technology was proven able to suppress essential tremor within just a few seconds. Meanwhile, two others that were each published on preprint servers last month show how the neurotech could potentially accelerate the onset of sleepand strengthen the memories of healthy young adults, respectively.
And here is a good, recent write up
Interesting to see what this looks like:
will have additional features rolled out over the first few weeks, like deep stimulation to maximize the time spent in deep sleep
I used the muse EEG for a while. It was quite good, but hard to keep in place. This strikes me as having similar issues.
Friends of mine had a startup doing a similar device. From what I remember the response is highly individualized, you need to put the device correctly and some people are bothered by it. But it works amazingly well on some people. So worth trying? 
It looks like a device you put on a few times, maybe for a few weeks then it’s in a drawer somewhere.
Good marketing. It’s tempting but I’ve been burned too many times.
I am looking forward to seeing what the company Attune Neurosciences comes up with. They are more medical focused than direct to consumer. They have been testing their tFUS device in clinical trials for at least a year, I think.
Maybe, I’ve been more happy with my most recent tech purchases - whoop, oura and pulsetto.
Earlier generations of such devices were not yet “there”, but this last gen of devices have surprised me on the upside.
@Joseph_Lavelle are you still using your Pulsetto?
Interesting.
Attune Neurosciences is a clinical stage company whose mission is to improve human health and performance through clinically-proven, non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical products.
We are funded by leading venture capital investors, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. Air Force, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Our goal is to establish the broad platform potential of our approach across a number of psychiatric and neurological conditions.
Our investigational products use low-intensity focused ultrasound to precisely target and modulate specific activity in the deep brain. Our trials are designed to demonstrate the safety of our approach and our ability to target the core structures in the deep brain that underlie various medical conditions.
We are currently investigating treatments for essential tremor, sleep disorders, depression, tinnitus, and ataxia telangiectasia. Additionally, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, we are researching the potential of our device to treat addiction and chronic pain; and with the U.S. Air Force, we are studying neuromodulation for healthy individuals to maintain alertness and cognitive function throughout shift work.
@Barnabas have you seen them publish any results in papers yet?
I have not seen any papers. They have this clinical trial underway: ClinicalTrials.gov
This research study will examine the safety and tolerability of the novel, wearable device Attune ATTN201. This device uses transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS), a form of noninvasive brain stimulation that uses sound waves to excite or inhibit the brain. The investigators research questions seek to answer how using brain imaging can guide the use of tFUS to stimulate a specific target unique to the participant’s brain. This target, the Thalamus, is involved in everyday brain processing and activity. Using the participant’s specific brain anatomy and tFUS, the investigators can precisely target this structure and further understand its role in the various functions. Unlike existing technologies, this device will incorporate offline usage, allowing users to comfortably wear the device out of the clinic or research setting for the first time.
Yes I am. I like the pain. I think it does do some good, perhaps even via the vagus nerve. But I like the pain.
I use an Oura ring. It annoys me mostly. I hated my whoop strap.
I love my NIR lamp.
Some wins; some losses
Brain waves is a bridge too far for me. I’ll do it if everyone says it works.
My Oura is great for sleep, but I hate it during the day and just take it off in the morning when I wake up. (Even if it was better when I got one that does on my left index finger vs on my right index finger where I wore it originally).
Interesting that you have not liked whoop - was it the fit? The monthly cost or something else?
I used the whoop 5ish years ago. It’s probably better now but I felt suckered in by “influencers” before I knew what that meant.
Wrist strap with no time. No. Data from wrist isn’t good. Even worse than finger.
Sleep tracking was poor.
The app was as good but that was just “perfuming the pig” since the data was poor.
