Light, interrupted sleep

[mrdannyg3]

Anyone want to take a shot at what the cause of sporadic and light sleep is? Up every couple hours, not the deep, out cold sleep. Can get my temps and pulse up no problem, but it's the only issue I haven't been able to resolve. Thanks!

 

[aniciete]

Do you usually eat before bed?

 

[mrdannyg3]

Yes I do

 

[aniciete]

Yes I do

You should try having your last meal 1-2 hours before bed. I personally have tried eating before bed and every single time I run into the issue you present. I think that giving yourself enough time for your last meal to digest properly is very important for deep sleep.

 

[mrdannyg3]

Hm I never thought about that actually. Thanks, I'll implement it. I'm usually coming at it from an endotoxin, seretonin issue. I literally wake up an hour after going to sleep, it's so annoying.

 

[aniciete]

Hm I never thought about that actually. Thanks, I'll implement it. I'm usually coming at it from an endotoxin, seretonin issue. I literally wake up an hour after going to sleep, it's so annoying.

Yeah no problem, it’s worth a shot. It also could very well be an endotoxin/serotonin issue if you’re going to bed with undigested food in your stomach.

 

[ursidae]

increasing my taurine and choline intake has helped with this problem.

 

[mrdannyg3]

Awesome replies, thanks. Interesting, there was a week in November where I doubled my daily egg intake (for the protein) and I slept a lot better the nights when I did this. Eggs high in choline

 

[Funnywhensunny]

I have this problem as well and have for all of my life. I have tried every combination of everything over the course of 35 years. While I find Peat's recommendations are are helpful, they are not conclusive in my case. I also wonder if birth trauma, or trauma in the early stages of the developing brain may be a factor.

 

[mrdannyg3]

I recently bumped up my thyroid/aspirin/coffee (with lots white sugar) intake greatly to try to combat fatigue from my hard physical work day, hoping it would eliminate estrogen. I’ve noticed that this might help short-term but never really does long-term for me - seems to worsen sleep (maybe I’m burning through vitamins creating deficiencies?). I always take the coffee away from bedtime, though. Thyroid at 2 grains, coffee 3 cups, aspirin nearing a gram. Anyways, maybe someone can relate

 

[Ben.]

When is the last time in the day you drink coffee or take another stimulant (vitamin d or b's?)

Get early day sun. Get some physical work done early in the day (jogging? weight training? gardening?) .Avoid blue light from screens 2 hours before sleeping. if you can't, use blue light blocking glasses for the screens. Turn of devices in your bedroom off. If your phone is your alarm clock, atleast turn mobile data and wifi off and put on airplane mode. Turn off wifi in your home when going to sleep.

Create a sleep ritual. over time this will be a trigger associated with sleep and all the body biochemical reactions related to it will activate.

These are probably the msot effective straight forward things. Other than that, gut/digestive health and hormones influence our sleep rythm.

 

[Kaur Singh]

i think that is typical hypothyroid pattern -
it takes energy to sleep well
someone posted their sleep study here somewhere - every time their body started to go into deep sleep, they would wake up

you may want to check your D levels
above 50 ng/ml

have you tried things that lower serotonin?

I guess there is the possibility your thyroid dose is too high
or that you need more than 2 grains?

also,
things that interfere with thyroid supplementation:
(from danny roddy's site)

 

[ALS]

Ray has mentioned several times that calcium, sugar, and salt will get you to sleep. Ex: Feta cheese and fruit; cheese and a Coke and brined olives; lots of combinations

 

[yerrag]

If deep sleep has little movement, and light sleep has a lot of it. And if light sleep is where you get to experience dreams, it must be that light sleep involves stimulation. REM sleep happens only in light sleep.

These past few days, I've slept a night with 90% deep sleep only to see myself waking up the next days with only 5% deep sleep. Still, either way I still feel rested.

I suspect though that with deep sleep there is more of the building and repairing and regenerating going on while in a light sleep there is more of a battle going on involving my immune system fighting pathogens.

Sometimes I can see the battle going on as expressed by fluctuations in my spO2 levels throughout the night. There are transient dips in my spO2 going down to 78%, but the dips vary a lot and most often the dips don't breach 90%. I believe the dips are not due to poor gas exchange in the lungs (as I would hear my recorded snores) but due to the huge demand for oxygen in the respiratory burst of phagocytosis involving neutrophils.

But there is no definite pattern that can lead me to find useful associations and correlations. Sometimes I would get deep sleep despite frequent large dips and I would get light sleep despite having few dips in spO2 levels.

If there is a cycle involved that causes the ebb and flow, I fail to detect it. Maybe there is some effect by the moon or maybe the planets? Perhaps studying astrology would give me a better understanding?

 

[CreakyJoints]

Have you tried inclining your bed?

I think not eating or drinking immediately before bed is wise, but if you are going to have something, then a sugary snack is often good. Avoiding overexposure to light (especially blue light) is probably a good idea as well.

The quotations from Peat and Barnes above via @Kaur Singh are good - I've found supplemental magnesium (in a bath) can help me sleep better, perhaps doing that once or twice a week can make a difference for you. Two other things I can think of which help me sleep much deeper are progesterone and cyproheptadine in quite small amounts.

I've also tried sleeping with red light on in my room, too - I don't point it directly at myself, but I seem to have a much deeper sleep on the nights I do use it. Perhaps that would be worth looking into.

If have some visualisation tricks and exercises which might help too, please feel free to message me if you'd like to hear about them! I think you've rather a lot to be getting on with from this thread already, though.

 

[aliml]

In TCM, organ activity is associated with waking up at a specific time of night.

 

[mrdannyg3]

Ray has mentioned several times that calcium, sugar, and salt will get you to sleep. Ex: Feta cheese and fruit; cheese and a Coke and brined olives; lots of combinations

Yes, I agree. And it helps. My nighttime calorie sources are all high in those three things.

 

[mrdannyg3]

you may want to check your D levels
above 50 ng/ml

Yes, great point. I have a hard time getting over 40, I check twice a year.

 

[mrdannyg3]

When is the last time in the day you drink coffee or take another stimulant (vitamin d or b's?)

I shut coffee down at 3pm. Should I try 12? It's hard, I simply just like it. Guilty pleasure. Also shoots up temp and pulse for me with enough cream and sugar. B's definitely keep me up, I keep heavy protein like steak or liver far away from bed. Could just be hard to digest protein doing it too, though. Among other things. And vitamin D, I do the Sperti lamp in the morning. In fact, because of past sleep struggles, I usually take all supplements by noon (not that long of a list, thyroid, aspirin, k2, vitamin D). But I do use aspirin and thyroid in the evening to remain in a nice, relaxed state with high temp/pulse. It seems easy to overdo this, though, so many times I just feel "stimulated" I cannot explain it any other way. Just alert at 9-10pm, not winding down. Georgi's recommendation to do carbs and protein daytime and then fats and carbs nighttime is right in line with my experience, btw. Cheese, milk, dairy at night make me "yawn" usually after eating.

 

[Filosofy]

Ray has mentioned several times that calcium, sugar, and salt will get you to sleep. Ex: Feta cheese and fruit; cheese and a Coke and brined olives; lots of combinations

Coke is filled with caffeine and I would advise against that before sleep.

OP: salt, sugar, milk before sleep. If you're sleeping with your head to the north this needs to be changed. East/west preferably.

Collagen/poppy seeds/calming herbal teas. What you seem to have is a liver agitation (according to Chinese medicine) and so even a cucumber could potentially help before bed.