Can you please provide some details to your original post.
Getting out in the warmth of the sun in the morning to wake up the melatonin in my mitochondria.
What time do you go out and for how long? What part of the planet do you live on?
NAC daily is vital for good HRV scores. This is so reliable with me that I can even judge the quality of the NAC by my over night HRV.
When do you take NAC and at what dosage?
Dark room, eye mask, earplugs (essential), chin strap to keep mouth closed, a wrap around velcro strap that kind of gives me a longer nose so the air coming in gets a bit more warm and humid (I learned this one from my dad who was a doctor). And if you are wondering; yes I look pretty funny!
What brand of earplugs do you like? Do you throw them away each day?
What brand of chin strap works for you?
L-arginine with a half a lemon or lime squeezed in it to make it palatable.
I understand you have stopped this but can you tell me your dosage? I will look into citrulline and am would love a ballpark dose to work with.
A squirt of witch hazel and/or rosemary in the drink above.
What brand of witch hazel
What brand of rosemary …extract?
Can you quantify a squirt?
Thanks for indulging my detailed questions. I sleep poorly and am always looking for suggestions to improve.
Rosmarinic Acid (in Rosemary) is an HDAC inhibitor. Witch Hazel has lots of things in it some of which may have KDAC inhibition effects. Too many things to easily check.
I started on biohacking to improve sleep as my sleep used to be dreadful (from about the age of 40 through to a year or two ago.)
I think it is a good idea
a) To use some form of sleep tracker to give some objectivity
b) To distinguish between sleep latency problems (difficulties getting to sleep) and sleep maintenance problems (waking up and not able to get back to sleep).
I think one of the reasons researchers have had a real problem understanding how sleep works is the interplay between melatonin in the cerebral spinal fluid and the interplay between that and the ultradian cycles. That makes the outcome of interventions difficult to predict unless they are timed in connection with the ultradian cycle.
Sure Joel, I really sympathise with anyone with sleep problems.
I live in Australia on the East Coast. Through winter we have had an infra red heater above the bed which goes on every morning at 7.30am - once the weather warms up enough I will get out in the backyard instead. Now spring is here I also get out for 30 to 40 minutes in the middle of the day for vitamin D.
I take Glynac and have just recently upped my dose but haven’t noticed much difference. I take it in the morning instead of coffee. Around 3500mg NAC and 7000mg Glycine in one cup with hot water (very sour). I try and do three of them a day now but often forget. I rarely drink alcohol anymore but take the same amount of NAC as above before and after drinking if I do. Glycine is meant to be good for sleep but with me it decreases my deep sleep and so I take it in the daytime.
I just get the industrial orange ones that construction workers use. I must admit I use the same ones over and over as the ear wax on them makes them easier to slide in and out with less damage to my ear canals. Chin straps have been quite a saga. I have one with velcro that is basically a long wide strap with two slots for my ears. I put this just under my chin but covering my mouth and angled up over my ears and strapped together at the back of my head. My hair in a loose high pony tale keeps it from slipping down. I then wear a silk padded eye mask but with the strap angled high at the back as well so it has some tension pulling my brow muscles wide. This and the mouth strap have stopped me needing botox (LOL). Last but not least I put a second silk eye mask without padding under the eye mask kind of shaped like a beak that warms the air coming in my nose. The strap on this one angled down. From my experience it takes a bit of time figuring out what works best for you. I am not sure about brands but just bought a bunch of different cheap straps, eye masks etc. and played around with them. Thicker straps work better imo - I didn’t end up liking any of the thin ones.
I am not really sure with the L-arginine. I think I was taking about a gram or maybe more? If you search L-arginine and longevity back in 2016 I seem to recall there is a research paper on it being considered the best longevity intervention. Things have obviously changed since then but this got me interested. I read this research paper only this year so you should still be able to find it.
I get my herbs from a compounding chemist so they don’t really come with a brand name. My husband makes the drinks and quite literally just uses a half to full squirt with the dropper in a small glass with a bit of soda water as our night cap. There is s research paper online somewhere that says that they found messing with increasing NO in the brain was too difficult and potentially dangerous and so considered cleaning up the mess downstream a better option. White witch hazel and Rosemary were the best herbal antioxidants but there was a whole list of others including Mugwort.
I have been documenting my journey with Taurine on a different thread. I take it now instead of L-arginine and a suppliment with ziziphus and lactium called Natures Own Complete Sleep. I was taking two of these but then could only find Natures Own Complete Sleep Advanced and find that one of those works better than two. Next time I think I will buy the non advanced formula which I found a bit better.
Chamomile gummies are also great IMO - much better than drinking tea at bedtime. I don’t have a brand and need to order some more!
The Taurine has been quite a journey but it is definately helping my sleep.
I think I might start alternating and taking the L-arginine every now and then instead of the Taurine (which I will still take in the daytime) and see if I can keep my deep sleep scores more consistently high. It seems with both of these aminos the really long deep sleep effect wears off slightly over time.
Still I am not complaining - my sleep is excellent now compared to what I used to put up with.
If you don’t have a watch to track your sleep I would really consider getting one. I have an Apple watch and without it could never have tracked all of this. The app I use is autosleep.
trazodone is said not to affect sleep architecture, but based on your experiences, does it affect your reaction time during the day?
"Although trazodone is efficacious for sleep maintenance difficulties, its associated cognitive and motor impairments may provide a modest caveat "
Trazadone seems to be a relatively clean and non-addicting drug. It mainly shortens the onset of sleep without any particular effect on sleep time. The good thing about it is it will take effect fairly quickly. This is something you can take when you wake up in the middle of the night if you have trouble going back to sleep. 50mg is sufficient. I have used it on and off in the past and if it slows reaction time it was imperceptible to me.
Yes, you can get it from India very cheaply, but not from Jagdish Nikose.
I bought one of these a while ago. I found it quite good at recording, but I wanted to use it for sleep and keeping it on my head was a nuisance. That, however, is an inherent problem. I do think it is good.
It’s possible that you got the older design, which was made of hard plastic? The new design, made of soft fabric, sounds like an improvement in that sense.
It was soft fabric. I do think they do a good job, however. To be honest, however, I am reasonably comfortable with fitbit’s sleep measurement and I can track short sleeps by looking at the heart rate monitor (and knowing when I have probably slept).
The last metabolic conf we went to had a side session on Allulose. A Dr was a principlal in RxSugar and they package a tub and single serving packs. The panel all where testing the product as a satiation trigger to stop sweet cravings. All the Drs self experiments poping pack of this Allulose/RxSugar product cut back their running for another chocolate, bowel of cerial etc.
Just sharing. We have the product but honestly our carnivore diet leaves me with only a modest residual from my past days over eating chocolate. I’ve down tuned my tastes so only this product called JoJo 2gr per serving is tolerable. Lindt etc to me is too sweet. But for those who haven’t moved down to JoJo 2gr or even the 8gr products; try a table spoon of allulose as the craving comes on. Its gritty just munch down. Or use water or? Good luck. curt