Unable to sleep, exhausted all day/everyday - developing dark circles under eyes. Getting desperate.

[HeyThere]

Back with an update! Slept on the couch for a couple nights, but it had no positive impact impact on sleep (it was almost as bad as sleeping on the floor). This weekend I'm going to try EMF reduction. This will entail turning off my WIFI router at right, and also stopping all use of wireless earbuds (air pods) during the day. I live in a studio apartment, so presumably there is still EMF cross-over from routers in adjacent apartments. I'll give this two nights of sleep and we'll see how it goes.

I'm following this experiment with such interest. I hope you find your answer, guy!

 

[DrivesOldTruck]

Back with another update! After 3 nights of shutting off the WIFI/router AND stopping my wireless airbud use, I believe I can say I've experienced an improvement in sleep quality. It's not yet the super deep, restful sleep I'm after - but I didn't wake up once in the middle of the night and I felt a bit more rested than usual upon waking. It's a step in the right direction.

Last night (which would be night #4), I slept horrible. While my WIFI/router were turned off, I did cheat and use my airpods while out on my 60min walk. However, I also had my first coffee (a latte) in over a week (~13 hours before bed), so that could be a contributing factor to the poor sleep.

I'm going to test this again by sticking with my EMF avoidance for the next two days. I'll record my sleep quality. On the third day, I'm going to reintroduce only the airpods on my daily 60min walk. I'll record my sleep quality that night.

Regardless of the outcome, I will be sticking with EMF avoidance moving forward, as minimizing EMF exposure has been something I've meant to do for some time anyway.
---

Sleep Better To-Do List:​

Green = positive impact
Red = no impact

- Check for parasites/dysbiotic bacteria via GI-MAP stool test (@chrstn4o)
- Liver flushes: Andrea Moritz protocol (@chrstn4o)
- Explore grounding your bed (@StephanF)
- Do what humans have done for centuries until "modern" quick rinseoff showering became a trend---a hot bath. Adding Epsom salts (magnesium) and baking soda will be absorbed thru your largest organ the skin. (@akgrrrl AND @Kocky777)
- Shoot for more than an hour of sunlight per day. Explore grounding during the day for better sleep. (@Sphagnum)
- Explore excessive EMF's - going to turn off my WIFI router at night and stop using apple ear pods during the day. (@Layne AND @Sphagnum)
- Experiment.. sleep in a different room for a few days, see if that does anything. You may have associated "going to sleep" as a stressful situation. (@HeyThere AND @Bozidar)
- Add more salt to food and a small pinch to the milk/juices you're drinking. If you take it too far, you may end up with a kind of high energy insomnia; be prepared to drink a bit of water before you sleep if that happens. (@ThinPicking)
- Try L-Ornithine to get the alcohol/ammonia out of his system, excellent amino acid for this. Also Taurine to lower Glutamate levels in the brain. Screw alcohol, take CBD gummies. You will feel BETTER in the morning with these as you'll still be calm and "loose" rather than hungover and dehydrated. (@HeyThere)
- Cyproheptadine - it has a calming effect so maybe it could solve his problem in two ways - 1st that cypro makes better sleep in general, and 2nd that he will not be stressed while not being able to sleep. Go slow with Cypro...one drop does it for me. (@Mathgirl AND @wzuo AND @Mathgirl)
- Look into phosphatidylserine (@Kocky777)
- I sleep on the couch in the living room because "bed in bedroom" is too "OK NOW YOU SLEEP" for me and my mind starts over-thinking. I get it. The couch is unconventional so it feels like "in a hotel". (@HeyThere)
- So, in my own Insomnia thread, @Peatful gave me the very effective advice to eat "1 pound of sugar in three days". I ate approximately 200 grams of honey and tonight I slept REALLY WELL and was also able to sleep WITHIN A FEW MINUTES. (@Kocky777)
- One thing I meant to put in my original reply in regards to the hotel thing, is that you may just need a new mattress. Different sheets as well. Different pillows. (@Sphagnum AND @HeyThere)
- B vitamins (Via Dr. Stasha Gominak Neurologist research), Ice cream at night (Ray Peat), and Tocovit topically. (Idealabs via Haidut) (@Mathgirl)
- CBD Gummies (@frannybananny AND @HeyThere)
- Taurine is great, in fact I take magnesium taurate almost every night, milk thistle seems to help, 2 drops of Progest-E will really knock me out (@frannybananny)

 

[ddjd]

I had restful, deep sleep all my life up through college. I am late 20's now and the quality of my sleep has completely deteriorated over the past year or so. I can't stay asleep for more than 6 hours straight. I am completely exhausted upon waking and throughout the day. I struggle to keep my eyes open upon waking and throughout the day. I have developed really unattractive dark circles under my eyes over the last few months.

There are only two scenarios that have brought me the deep, restful sleep I desire:
1. Binge drinking alcohol. The trick here really is in the word "binge". If I have two glasses of wine in the evening, I won't be able to sleep. If I drink 7 beers while out with the boys, I'll feel deeply rested upon waking the next morning (albeit, with a bad hangover). I gave up alcohol a couple months ago while working through my sleep issue.
2. Sleeping in hotel rooms. I can't figure out why this is the case, but I always wake up feeling absolutely amazing after spending a night in a hotel room.

I workout daily. I get 60min of sunlight every day (I'm maintaining a really dark tan); I don't wear sunglasses while outside. My diet consists mainly of eggs, red meat, beef liver, chicken breast, shrimp, oysters, gelatin, milk, tallow, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, brussel sprouts, spinach, orange juice, other fruit juices, white rice, and white potatoes. I've tried various supplements: a multivitamin, zinc, magnesium, ZMA, glycine, lysine, vitamin D, some others... but I've never taken a single supplement in my life that actually changed the way I feel (I am currently not taking any supplements as a result).

Any ideas are really appreciated. This sleep disorder is ruining my life and preventing me from achieving my goals. I think the dark circles under my eyes are really hurting me when it comes to dating. I'm tired of being tired and losing hope.

idealabs melanon (naringenin + apigenin) is pretty incredible for sleep ive found. definitely worth trying and this is coming from someone whos had sleep issues for over a decade

 

[Bluebell]

Back with an update! Slept on the couch for a couple nights, but it had no positive impact impact on sleep (it was almost as bad as sleeping on the floor). This weekend I'm going to try EMF reduction. This will entail turning off my WIFI router at right, and also stopping all use of wireless earbuds (air pods) during the day. I live in a studio apartment, so presumably there is still EMF cross-over from routers in adjacent apartments. I'll give this two nights of sleep and we'll see how it goes.

Good you are doing this DrivesOldTruck, but if it doesn't help, don't rule out EMF. You also need to test for any of these affecting you in your bed, especially if they are new since your sleeping problem started: neighbours wifi which you mentioned, smart meters from all your neighbours/building for all different types of utility, cell towers, 5G towers. For proper test could look into hiring a meter that picks up all of these including 5G. Sleeping OK in hotel vs at home is a clue that points to possibility of EMF being an issue. EMF is hard to test for properly by symptom observation as your tolerance for it can go up and down over time according to your health/circumstances.

 

[Bluebell]

+ as you mentioned, the coffee will confound your results. Coffee can really keep you awake at night if you are sensitive to it, even taken 1st thing in morning.

 

[HeyThere]

If nothing ends up working, I still highly suggest lowering your Glutamate (it's in many foods and drinks like Gatorade as MSG and other ingredients).

- Try GABA (did NOT work for me, raised my Glutamate because I'm "one of those people it might happen to").
- Try Taurine (this worked immediately for me).

 

[StephanF]

I bought a grounded pillowcase from Amazon. I put it under my normal pillowcase and connected to my +9V biased aluminum mesh that is under my mattress. My sleep improved slightly, I seem to dream more intense. I also have a grounding pad under the bed sheet at the foot end.

I also sleep with an ‘Accu-Vac’ coil that I squeezed between the head board and the mattress. Here an interesting story about it:

Way back in the days when I lived in Germany and studied for my Masters in Physics, my best high school friend had married and they had kids and their single story house became to small. They added another floor and moved the bedrooms upstairs. I warned them about a noxious zone crossing their house that I had previously detected. Now their master bedroom and the bedroom of their eldest son were compromised by this noxious energy. My friend started to get bad headaches and his wife picked up dowsing and she found the same interfering energy line. So she looked for the best place in their master bedroom and moved the bed. Now her husband could sleep with no issues.

But their son did not well in school. He left school with a middle school diploma, which you can get in Germany. For this achievement, my friend built his son a bed frame in the corner of his room, away from this energy. Then his son became again interested in going back to school, finished high school and was in the top of his class, went to get his diploma in electrical engineering and since had a great job with the German railway system! Just by moving the bed!!!

At the time when he studied for his diploma, I came to a visit to Germany and brought my ‘Accu-Vac’ coil with me and gave it to my friend to try it out. He and his wife both tried it out and felt like sleeping in a cocoon. Then they gave it to their eldest son and he slept so well with it, he wouldn’t give it back, so I left it with him! True story!

Since their eldest son moved out, my friend and his wife sleep in their son’s bed, it is the best place in the whole house!!

I met the late Slim Spurling, the dowser in Colorado who made these ‘Life-Light’ tools, a couple of times. His wife still have them made and she lectures in Germany and here in the US. Amazing couple!

 

[olowshinenine]

regarding emfs I have solar panels on my roof would that be creating emfs that would affect my sleep?

 

[Ismail]

I absolutely respect your experience/opinion. I think it´s a typical case of "Your mileage may vary". For me, right now, 800mg of Phosphatidylserine feels good, but I am going to lower the dose one day, of course.
Right now, it seems to deal with my alleged high cortisol well.

I remember a few years ago I tried PS at 150mg and it did nothing for my extreme stress and high cortisol levels (dosage on back of bottle suggested 150mg). It wasn’t until I read somewhere that 800mg is needed to help with cortisol issues and stress etc., I split the dose exactly as you have, and I couldn’t believe how amazingly it reduced my stress and cortisol levels. It also cleared my skin up, which was also welcomed!

 

[Summer]

I bought a grounded pillowcase from Amazon. I put it under my normal pillowcase and connected to my +9V biased aluminum mesh that is under my mattress. My sleep improved slightly, I seem to dream more intense. I also have a grounding pad under the bed sheet at the foot end.

I also sleep with an ‘Accu-Vac’ coil that I squeezed between the head board and the mattress. Here an interesting story about it:

Way back in the days when I lived in Germany and studied for my Masters in Physics, my best high school friend had married and they had kids and their single story house became to small. They added another floor and moved the bedrooms upstairs. I warned them about a noxious zone crossing their house that I had previously detected. Now their master bedroom and the bedroom of their eldest son were compromised by this noxious energy. My friend started to get bad headaches and his wife picked up dowsing and she found the same interfering energy line. So she looked for the best place in their master bedroom and moved the bed. Now her husband could sleep with no issues.

But their son did not well in school. He left school with a middle school diploma, which you can get in Germany. For this achievement, my friend built his son a bed frame in the corner of his room, away from this energy. Then his son became again interested in going back to school, finished high school and was in the top of his class, went to get his diploma in electrical engineering and since had a great job with the German railway system! Just by moving the bed!!!

At the time when he studied for his diploma, I came to a visit to Germany and brought my ‘Accu-Vac’ coil with me and gave it to my friend to try it out. He and his wife both tried it out and felt like sleeping in a cocoon. Then they gave it to their eldest son and he slept so well with it, he wouldn’t give it back, so I left it with him! True story!

Since their eldest son moved out, my friend and his wife sleep in their son’s bed, it is the best place in the whole house!!

I met the late Slim Spurling, the dowser in Colorado who made these ‘Life-Light’ tools, a couple of times. His wife still have them made and she lectures in Germany and here in the US. Amazing couple!

Hey Stephan, do you have a link to any resources regarding these noxious zones and how to detect them?

 

[Greyfox]

Dark circles, energy problems, sleep problems. Have you considered Iron deficiency? I know iron isn't the first recommendation here due it's potential danger but it is possible to be deficient. Inhibiting iron absorption all the time with milk and coffee could be the cause.

 

[wzuo]

regarding emfs I have solar panels on my roof would that be creating emfs that would affect my sleep?

yes it creates EMF and how big it is depends on way how wires are laid. There's a induction coil phenomenon that can happen if positive and negative pole wires are laid incorrectly, it is also said that such a wrong method of wiring attracts lightning.
Depends on how much PV panels you have got in a string voltage can get up to 500V DC (sometimes inverter allows for higher string voltage but it depends on its output size)

 

[StephanF]

Hey Stephan, do you have a link to any resources regarding these noxious zones and how to detect them?

Tough question. I did start dowsing during a summer vacation while I studied I Germany. It was at Schloss Elmau, located close to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which is close to the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany, in the Alps. Beautiful surrounding, relaxed atmosphere. There was an architect that mentioned that during a construction, they have to do an excavation and there were no blueprints from the city water mains. So the backhoe operator grabbed a couple of welding rods, bent the ends over to an L-shape, took one each into each hand and with a bunch of wooden blocks (probably in a bag) he sat foot onto the field and went in a zig-zag fashion over the field and whenever the rods were crossing, he put a wooden block into the soil. The blocks lined up in a straight line and he started excavating carefully at that crossing and found the water main! I made som L-rods from cloth hangers that were left in the closet of my hotel room and started to explore what I could pick up. We were staying at the ‘Mueller House’ which was a bit away from the main building. There we had breakfast outside and were bothered by wasps, which should have had a nest somewhere close by. I explored around this building and first tried to find one of the global grid lines, either the Curry grid, named after the American Dr. Manfred Curry, or the Hartmann grid, named after the German physician Dr. Hartmann. These are repeating ‘energy’ lines that dowsers routinely pick up and can cause sleep and/or health problems. So I finally picked one line up, which I was able to follow and then I looked for a line that was at a right angle to the first. I found that too. Then I wondered ‘what may be at its crossing’? So I looked and there was the wasp nest in ground!!! I was baffled!

Back in my apartment in Aachen, where I studied for my Master’s in experimental high energy particle physics, writing my thesis, this thought came up: I should check one of the diagonal Curry grid lines that went through my apartment, to see whether it was going I a straight line. Really, really weird. So I knew were they were roughly going through the room and so I made a pendulum, the brass weight was a two piece holder for the thin anode wires for the proportional particle detectors that we built at the physics ‘department’ it was the Lehrstuhl für Experimental Physik IIIB. I worked there also part time in the electronic development lab. So I had these brass pieces and with a piece of yarn, this was my first pendulum. I had read on how to ‘program’ it and had bought a nylon thread that I fixed at each side of the room, where I had located the grid line. Equipped with a pile of thumb tags, I went to work. About every foot or so I let the pendulum swing at right angle to the nylon thread. It started with a linear swing and when it was above the grid line and therefore also over the nylon thread, it had changed to rotate in a perfect circle. So it went from linear back and forth to an ellipse when I moved it closer to the grid line and the perfect circular motion indicated that I was directly over the grid line. When I move my hand further past the grid line, it slowly turned into an elliptical movement and finally back to a linear back and forth movement, once I was far enough away from the grid line, maybe four inches or so.

Each time I found the position, I put down one of the thumb tags. Now this could have been a boring exercise, going along the nylon thread from one end of the room to the other. But something unexpected happened:

The grid line, with a shallow angle, passed through the end of my desk. This desk I built myself and was just a large carpenter wooden slab with four long legs underneath. Nothing fancy. The grid line went sort of through these two legs. Now I happened to have stored some stuff at the end of the table, including one of a pair of self-built loud speakers. One I had already brought over to my mom’s house and stored it there in the cellar. So one of them was still there, and I had it also stored underneath my desk. It was in my way, since this grid line was just going through there and I had to push everything aside.

When I came close to the table, I ‘lost’ the grid line. Strange, I thought. I went back to the previous location, there it was! So I went half-way unsure what exactly was going on. I was able to locate the grid line but it was no longer where the nylon thread indicated it’s assumed location. I went further in smaller steps and there was a distortion that looked like a Gaussian bell curve, only slightly hangin to one side. I continued and a bit further I found a second such distortion, same height and width as the first one. The height may have been 1-1/2 foot and the width maybe half a foot.

After I finished, I stood up and looked at this strange structure. Why were there these two bumps in the grid line and why were they both leaning to the left?? Then I saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes: in the middle between the two bumps was my old loud speaker! And the loud speaker was tilted, which related to the leaning of the two bumps to the left! Unbelievable! I took careful measurements and out a scaled drawing on millimeter paper.

Much later I used a magnetic mapping software and overlayed a false color map of the magnetic vector potential of the loud speaker to visualize that maybe this was causing this distortion.

Now one has to realize that these grid lines are not ‘lines’ at all but invisible ‘sheets’ of something that criss-crosses the globe.

So the ‘distortion’ must also be a 3-dimensional object, I just sensed a cross section of that. So it looks like a toroidal distortion, it has the shape of a vulcano lying on its side.

I still ponder about what these grid lines are. From theoretical electrodynamics I know about the so-called magnetic vector potential. I also know that the magnetic flux is quantized. There are some theoretical papers that discuss the quantization of the magnetic vector potential. So the best explanation that I can give is that the grid lines may be quantization boundaries of the magnetic vector potential of the Earth’s magnetic field. I don’t blame anyone who can’t follow this. It is even for me almost impossible to grasp.

But here are a couple of pictures from the strangest experiment that I ever did. And it was NOT part of my Master’s thesis! Haha!

 

[supercoolguy]

cyproheptadine...mmmm.

Yep! For me, 1mg taken 1-2hrs prior.

 

[cs3000]

@DrivesOldTruck I have the same thing , following your updates i've been trying to fix this
overactive exhausting sleep with excessive dreaming & fatigued days for years

Dark circles, energy problems, sleep problems. Have you considered Iron deficiency? I know iron isn't the first recommendation here due it's potential danger but it is possible to be deficient. Inhibiting iron absorption all the time with milk and coffee could be the cause.

yeah this is good to look into as one of the main factors,
dark circles are commonly from iron deficiency as the thin tissues around the eyes shows the hypoxia,
& low brain iron affects sleep architecture , increases REM sleep in first 1/3 of sleep which interferes with slow wave restorative phase

know u eat red meat but could be worth a look just incase, can see with transferrin + ferritin in blood panel (doesn't have to be full blown anemia to have negative effects)

PHGG helps iron absorption Partially Hydrolyzed Guar Gum Increases Ferroportin Expression in the Colon of Anemic Growing Rats
Or Propolis Beneficial effect of pollen and/or propolis on the metabolism of iron, calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium in rats with nutritional ferropenic anemia - PubMed

cortisol could play a role in delaying rem latency to allow sws to do its thing but might increase minutes if thats an issue idk
someone on here with a similar problem had some success on keto diet. but not a healthy / long term solution
apart from getting to sleep crypto probably isnt useful for unrefreshing sleep because it gives next day drowsiness, but u never know individually could hit a balanced dose if dont overdo it i guess

 

[olowshinenine]

yes it creates EMF and how big it is depends on way how wires are laid. There's a induction coil phenomenon that can happen if positive and negative pole wires are laid incorrectly, it is also said that such a wrong method of wiring attracts lightning.
Depends on how much PV panels you have got in a string voltage can get up to 500V DC (sometimes inverter allows for higher string voltage but it depends on its output size)

oh boy this is troubling. Unfortunately the solar panel lease came with the house I bought there was no way for me to get out of it.

 

[Summer]

@StephanF wow thanks for the write-up. The process is far more involved than I was expecting and way above my head lol

 

[Kyle970]

I've always thought solar panels on the house is sketchy.
Wouldn't bond my bedding etc, to an electrical outlet. Possibly okay in Europe, delta systems?
Utilities use ground for return, so not exactly "ground".
Think turning off the breaker in the bedroom is a good thing.

When my seasonal neighbors are home, my decent sleep is out the window. 5g, wifi, other frequencies, who knows.
Always sleep extremely well when camping in the backcountry. It seems some are more sensitive. Possibly minerals, not sure.

 

[Nick]

When my seasonal neighbors are home, my decent sleep is out the window. 5g, wifi, other frequencies, who knows.

Neighbors LEDs, fluorescent lights, appliances, computers etc. can add more dirty electricity (voltage transients) to local grid, which causes more radio frequencies in the kHz and MHz range to be broadcast from the wiring of your house acting like an antenna array.

 

[Kyle970]

@Nick
I agree.