Sleep supplements: what is most effective, least habit forming, and safest?

500mg at bed, another 500mg midsleep.

Unlike melatonin, tryptophan clears my system by morning.

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Though they share the same pathway, for some reason I have found tryptophan to be much more effective than 5-THP. 2-3 grams is an effective dose. GABA absolutely works by slowing your racing mind down. Again 2-3 grams.

GABA: “Its chief role is to calm the brain, slow things down, and relax you. One of the ways that it assists in this process is by increasing alpha wave production.”

GABA + L-theanine reduces sleep latency. Taurine taken ~1 hour before GABA increases the effect of GABA.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13880209.2018.1557698

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Thanks for the information. When do you take GABA and Tryptophan? Just before bed or some other time?

@desertshores Being so well informed on the subjects that come up on these boards, I think one of the universities should award you a medical degree. :smile: Great info. I bookmarked your post. thanks,

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Moderate tryptophan intake may be beneficial, but excessive tryptophan can lead to accumulation of kynurenine and indole metabolites, activate AhR pathway and induce kidney injury.

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Perhaps try to add a routine of meditation (helps me) and/or breathing exercises.

Have you tried one of the vagus nerve devices?

Might also be good to analyze what supplements (or other behaviors) to not do or not do too close to bed

Taking b vitamins late in the day is generally not good. And similarly - but came as surprise to me - d vitamin can also impact sleep negatively if taken late the day.

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It clearly does affect different people in different ways.

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Chamomile tea with 4-5 g of Glycine mixed in. However, I’ve never had problems sleeping. I just conk out. Especially Fridayszzzzzzzzz…

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I took it for few days some years ago for sleep and while it did nothing in these few days I was taking it, it just gave me immediate ED.

Why did you stop mirtazapine? Did you take it for insomnia or depression? Low dose mirtazapine is quite good for sleep if you are tolerating it well. I wasn’t. Gave be a strange feeling of disassociation during the day. But have a friend who takes it for years and she is tolerating it really well.
I switched to quentapine in really low dose (6,25 mg) and after few days of “hangover” and “drowsiness” in the morning I really could sleep the whole night 8+ hours, but it did not improve much deep and REM sleep. I was taking it for a year or so. My insomnia was induced by anxiety and when the cause resolved so did my insomnia.

From OTC supplements tryptophan or just chamomile tea with milk gives me a better sleep. Once I was trying some milk peptides, forgot the name, but they were amazing for sleep quality. But it is not a cure for insomnia.

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I stopped mirt for a variety of reasons. It does things to my hormones and bodily functions that have always been a negative. Much higher cholesterol and blood sugar results, weight gain, and other negatives such as it being anticholinergic. And the key here is that I am not depressive any longer, and probably have not been for years. So my thinking is that taking a medication with this many “health hostage negotiations” problems, whose main purpose is depression alleviation, seems over-kill.

If insomnia is all I really need to have fixed, I am looking for something with less health impact that handles that. Or hopefully transition to minimal drug or supplement intervention entirely.

By the way, I used GABA and 5-htp last night and while I slept better I feel groggy. I will dial down the dose and hopefully no other side-effects like ED…yikes.

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What are vagus nerve devices? Can you give me an example?

Perhaps one like this?

Others I see on Amazon use electrical stimulation with mediocre reviews.

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Yes and this one

https://www.parasym.co/parasym-tvns-heart-rate-variability.html

Some discussed here and below

Another the one you mentioned here

And here and a few messages down

See more here, including about grounded sheets, etc

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I love the half-life calculator that was previously posted on another thread.

The main problem with the calculator as I see it is, that we don’t actually know the absorbed dose, as is frequently the case with rapamycin. But, it can give us some pertinent information so that we can adjust our doses.

This is something you probably should use to calculate the doses and frequency of various supplements that you are taking.

Here is an example using anti-histamines as sleep aids, Don’t

Regardless of the other possible negatives for taking antihistamines as a sleep aid, are their relatively long half-lives as related to your sleep cycle. This is why you continue to feel drowsy even after a good night’s sleep if you take any of the common antihistamine-based sleep aids.

Notice that melatonin even taken in a massive 100 mg dose is almost completely gone in 8 hours. Melatonin, itself does not cause sleepiness per se, it merely adjusts your circadian rhythm. (Not talking about melatonin’s other possible benefits)

Half Life Calculator (“Company”) https://half-life-calculator.com

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Always get the best night’s sleep when physically very tired.
That happens for me when I do a one hour zone 2 in the morning, weight training early afternoon and an hour of table tennis early evening.

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You are really active! Zone 2 training for 1 hour? It’s great. What helps even more is to be young. Young ppl can easily sleep for 10 hours and never have problems falling asleep. So the best supplement is to stay young and never age.

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Yes, I try to do 1 hour of zone 2 three times a week.
I do it on a stationary bike and listen to podcasts whilst doing it.
I then tack on to the end 3-5 minutes of HIIT.

Another thing I find with help inducing sleepiness is to get into bed and read a book at the same time as having a lamp that simulates sunset, diminishing in brightness. (It also simulates sunrise in the morning).

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This helps me also. If come to sound that the most impactful way for for me doing this is via an audiobook, while ensuring the room is in complete darkness

And best results are aiding the brains feeling sunset happened it is now night the 90 min or so before by dimming lights and using blue light blocking glasses
(better with the larger, bulky (but cheap) “construction protection ones” that cover the eyes more completely than newer ones that look more likely normal glasses and where more likes “leaks” in around the top, bottom and sides).

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What’s your HIIT protocol and do you do each of the three times a week of the zone 2 base, or less frequently?

For me these types of days definitely help me fall asleep well. But I’m not sure whether my net rest upon waking up is optimal - subjectively and also that key sleep releveant metrics - eg HRV over the night was lower than average and HR higher.

Could perhaps be overdoing it for reaching an optimal rest/recovery/“rejuvenation” impact?