Sleep Issues - Please Help
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No matter what I do I cant fall asleep earlier than whatever my current bedtime is, and it seems my internal clock is constantly shifting forwards. For the past 2 weeks or so ive been going to bed a 8-9 AM and waking up at 4-5 PM. Easy fix right? Just sleep earlier. I would if I could, I cant even take a little nap if its hasnt been at least 16 hours since I woke up, regardless of how exhausted or sleep deprived I may be. Ive pulled all nighters to try to fix this, end up falling asleep at the same time anyway. Forcing myself to wake up earlier everyday until it "happens"... that never works. Alcohol, benadryl, melatonin, chamomile do not help me sleep at all. They make me feel sleepy, as pulling an all nighter does, but it seems that just feeling sleepy is not enough for me to actually fall asleep. Regular exercise seems to make no difference. May be worth mentioning: I seem to be a lot more sensitive to the effects of sleep deprivation than the average person, getting less than 7 hours of sleep two nights in a row feels genuinely horrible to me. I wish I could just decide to "sleep a little earlier today, because I feel it", like others do, and actually fall asleep earlier.
tl;dr: Im falling asleep at sunrise and waking up at sunset, struggling to fix my sleep schedule. Nothing seems to work
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I had this for about 6 months and just fixed it the past few days.
Are you hypothyroid? It was an energy problem for me.
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@questforhealth It could be just a thyroid issue. How did you fix it? I have plenty of coffee and sugar everyday. Maybe I should start taking T3
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what are you doing during those awake hours? Computer?
Have you thought about the light? If you spend all day outside in the daylight, and then in the evening you light only with a candle and use zero screens - i cant imagine that wouldn't work eventually.
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I agree with more daytime light and possibly thyroid. Gaze at the sun periodically to shut off melatonin production during the day.
Peat mentioned that some people had some success with three grams of glycine, but I experimented with a higher dose one time and it made me feel extremely calm but not necessarily sleepy. It might be worth a try but probably the easiest thing to do is get more sunlight or a brooder lamp and avoid proximity to blue screens for a while before you go to bed. Also have little ice cream or something salty last thing at night. If I'm particularly stressed for some reason, I'll sometimes do some salted milk, glycine and benadryl before bed. -
Watching this thread. I have the same issue. It was temporarily fixed from niacin but only for a few days. Really amazing while it lasted.
For something short term I have found phenibut + l-theanine. Functioning as a sleeping pill. Both work on gaba. Too much gaba can actually dangerously depress the CNS so be aware. Tolerance builds so may be effective only twice per week.
If I find something that consistently fixes it I'll post it here.
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@_K It is the same for me. There is two important signals for resetting your circadian rhythm, eating and sunlight. Go outside immediately after waking up early in the morning and grab breakfast. Only works if it is sunny though.
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@_K How many calories do you eat per day, what's your weight, height and age? I used to suffer from similar problems when I wasn't eating enough calories.
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Ray Peat has cautioned us about the harmful effects of blue light and wavelengths of radiation that are shorter than the blue wavelengths. However as is often the case, the dose is the poison. The study below suggests that an intentional addition of a small dose of blue light in the morning may be helpful for some people.
Sunlight has a circadian pattern and Ray has spoken about the benefical effects of the red light associated with early morning sunlight. Coincidently, early morning sunlight has very little blue light. I am wondering is the amount of blue light in the morning sunlight is not quite enough to turn-off the systemic melatonin in some people.
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Aspirin temporarily (for about a week) fixed this for me but after a few particularly stressful days the problem returned.
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I had this issue for an entire year, but it's (seemingly) resolved for the past 8mo or so.
What helped me:- no caffeine past 2pm, ever
- no cigarettes past 7pm (still working on quitting)
- blue light filter on computer (flux for windows) and phone, linked to sunrise/sunset
- going outside in bright sun several times a day, most importantly in the early morning
- 1 hour walk with ankle weights after dinner 5:30ish
- 300mg GABA + 1/4 tsp glycine + Mg once the sun has set. 1:2 OJ:seltzer afterwards, avoiding eating anything but a bit of fruit (if that)
- no video games, tv shows or otherwise stimulating activities within 2 hours before bed
- 10 min spurts of bodyweight exercise throughout the day
- no heavy proteins withing 4 hours of when I aim to go to bed (especially animal protein)
- turning off Wi-Fi in the house at night
- sleep area clear of E fields from appliances, tvs, etc
- phone airplane mode at night
- changed my house lights to warm white, avoiding daylight bulbs like the plague
- rgb room light at night so I can transition room lighting from golden yellow at sundown to red after sunset
- reading a book an hour before bed
- using blackout curtains or equivalent to prevent the light from the stupid blue LED Street lamps coming in
- ensuring there are no little lights from any devices, monitors, computers, etc glowing in my sleep room
There might be a few more things involved, but this is what I've come to realize made a difference in concert
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You can try doxylamine succinate (an antihistamine, also known as Sleep Aid) at bedtime to help with a reset. Also some hot cocoa sweetened with sugar (or better dextrose). These always work for me.
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@Insomniac Happy to share
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@_K Have you tried cyproheptadine? It can have a very potent sedative effect, especially when taken a few hours before bed
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@Insomniac Yeah it's definitely stronger than doxylamine in my experience, the downside is you can become resistant to it pretty fast unfortunately. The IdeaLabs cyproheptadine works pretty well I think
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