What things 100% improved your sleep quality from unrefreshing sleep?

[AlaskaJono]

Would you post a pic?

We had a wall wart plug that fit and was 5V DC.
I had a sparky mate check it and yes some measurements at 7.8 hz and 12.x hz and 14 hz too. His equipment is crude for this measurement but works. (More mega measurements oriented). Cheers.

 

[reality]

No caffeine after 10-11am helps quite a lot. No caffeine at all helps immensely, night and day difference.
This may differ for each individual, as people have differing speeds of caffeine metabolism, but here's why...

- Caffeine blocks receptors that use Adenosine.
- Adenosine is the chemical your brain begins to produce, upon waking, when there's enough of it at the end of the day it makes you feel tired.
- When you sleep, your body then uses up the adenosine
- Adenosine is one of the primary chemicals that assists with putting you into deep and restful sleep.
- Adenosine receptors are blocked, not the production of it. So it builds up when there's still caffeine in your system
- With a 5hr half life on average, there will still be trace amounts of caffeine in your system still blocking some adenosine from being used.
- Your adrenalin levels come down a few hours after the caffeine was consumed, so you don't feel the energy hit, but your adenosine receptors are still being blocked to an extent.
- This blocks your body from entering the most optimal deep sleep.
- Also means you may wake up with unused adenosine left over from the previous day, this is why (as a caffeine consumer), you feel groggy even after 8 hours sleep, and dependant on your morning coffee to block the remaining adenosine and feel 'awake'.
- This can easily create a negative feedback loop where you slowly retain more and more adenosine from each previous day, as you ingest more and more caffeine to stave off the effects of blocking the adenosine during sleep.

Caffeine is in a lot of stuff, not just coffee. Most soda has caffeine for example, and many people enjoy their soda at night time. If you ever go cold turkey don't be surprised when you sleep 12+ hours and sleep through alarms, the first night of no caffeine consumption. That's your body finally able to utilise all the adenosine that has gradually built up over time, and often times there's a lot of it.

Coffee also releases catecholamines and at the same time has compounds that inhibits MAO (which breaks them down) so can keep them higher for longer. If you have genetic defects in these enzymes then you could have a build up which will also interfere with sleep

 

[GodsHound]

On electric fields, I think having a power extension cable running under the head of the bed can negatively effect sleep, especially if you have springs in your mattress. I think the springs can amplify small electric fields under your bed.

 

[AlaskaJono]

On electric fields, I think having a power extension cable running under the head of the bed can negatively effect sleep, especially if you have springs in your mattress. I think the springs can amplify small electric fields under your bed.

On a related note to EMF, I completely forgot that I make sure no cell phones are in the bedroom, even off and charging, and we usually unplug the router at night in the house. Why not give our bodies spaaaaaace....... from emf when possible.

 

[Perry Staltic]

The person above who said they like swimming, that sounds so great. I want to go do that now.

For all who want to swim, but don't have access to a pool and do have some outdoor space, you can get an above ground pool and swim against a bungee cord. I got a 14' x 48" a couple of years ago for $300, but they've gone up in price.

 

[parallax]

Getting adequate sunlight, low dose lithium, and having the option to change my sleeping arrangement have made the biggest differences for me.
Adequate sunlight for me is roughly 15 minutes full body exposure at solar noon in summer at 32 degrees north, or about 12 on the UV index.
Low dose lithium is around 15mg elemental lithium daily, dose timing irrelevant.
Option to change my sleeping arrangement means I have a bed (flat, stiff board with 4" of memory foam, head of bed 7" higher than the foot.) and a hammock, or a chaise and a hammock and the floor, etc. I will usually only use one of these for several months and then switch to another, but sometimes I fall asleep in one and if I wake up in the middle of the night I will go sleep in the other. I have slept mostly in a hammock for the last 12 years, and that made the biggest difference, particularly as I was recovering from some sports injuries in the first five or so of those years.

I've always killed my wifi router and other obvious EMF sources at night, so I actually cannot say whether that makes much of a difference to my sleep.

 

[David PS]

A weighted blanket increases pre-sleep salivary concentrations of melatonin in young, healthy adults​

Summary​

Weighted blankets have emerged as a potential non-pharmacological intervention to ease conditions such as insomnia and anxiety. Despite a lack of experimental evidence, these alleged effects are frequently attributed to a reduced activity of the endogenous stress systems and an increased release of hormones such as oxytocin and melatonin. Thus, the aim of the present in-laboratory crossover study (26 young and healthy participants, including 15 men and 11 women) was to investigate if using a weighted blanket (~12% of body weight) at bedtime resulted in higher salivary concentrations of melatonin and oxytocin compared with a light blanket (~2.4% of body weight). We also examined possible differences in salivary concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol, salivary alpha-amylase activity (as an indicative metric of sympathetic nervous system activity), subjective sleepiness, and sleep duration. When using a weighted blanket, the 1 hour increase of salivary melatonin from baseline (i.e., 22:00) to lights off (i.e., 23:00) was about 32% higher (p = 0.011). No other significant differences were found between the blanket conditions, including subjective sleepiness and total sleep duration. Our study is the first to suggest that using a weighted blanket may result in a more significant release of melatonin at bedtime. Future studies should investigate whether the stimulatory effect on melatonin secretion is observed on a nightly basis when frequently using a weighted blanket over weeks to months. It remains to be determined whether the observed increase in melatonin may be therapeutically relevant for the previously described effects of the weighted blanket on insomnia and anxiety.

 

[Makrosky]

No protein in the evening.
Buteyko.
Sunglasses 1-2 hours before bedtime.
Enough salt & carbs before bed.

What is the reasoning for no protein in the evening?

I started swimming last week and found it has really helped with sleep. I'm guessing it's somewhat due to fatigue but I think that CO2 tolerance may have something to do with it. Apart from some muscle soreness and tiredness I've felt a lot of relaxation from swimming and yesterday had the thought it could be related to CO2. I noticed towards the end of the week that holding my breath for longer helped my form, greatly reduced the effort required to swim and increased the post swim zen mindstate. The stress relief was so profound I was going to make a thread but think it fits here.

I concur to this. I practice free diving when I can and I am really sure it is some kind of buteyko/breath exercise because I see a lot of benefits. When I swim in a swimming pool (not too much these days) I try to mimmick the breath holding I do on freediving.

Best things for me have been: Moving somewhere peaceful, exposure to natural dawn/dusk light, only simple carbs before bed and feng shui principles for bed placement.

Besides very basic bed placement mistakes like head under a window or back of the head facing a door and stuff like that, I think most of the benefits experienced when one changes bed position is because geopathic ot EMF spots. Not saying Feng Shui doesn't have its benefits, as aligning with magnetic poles probably i fluences quality of sleep.

On electric fields, I think having a power extension cable running under the head of the bed can negatively effect sleep, especially if you have springs in your mattress. I think the springs can amplify small electric fields under your bed.

Absolutely. I would avoid spring mattresses nowadays, too much EMF everywhere and you really don't know how the springs might be amplifying it.

 

[miquelangeles]

Absolutely. I would avoid spring mattresses nowadays, too much EMF everywhere and you really don't know how the springs might be amplifying it.

It seems counterintuitive but I found AC fields (50/60hz) to be neutral or sometimes beneficial, and RF/microwave always detrimental.

 

[Makrosky]

It seems counterintuitive but I found AC fields (50/60hz) to be neutral or sometimes beneficial, and RF/microwave always detrimental.

Don't want to sound rude but that is hard to believe. Neutral if you are not sensitive to them and have good health, ok. But beneficial?

 

[koky]

I started swimming last week and found it has really helped with sleep. I'm guessing it's somewhat due to fatigue but I think that CO2 tolerance may have something to do with it. Apart from some muscle soreness and tiredness I've felt a lot of relaxation from swimming and yesterday had the thought it could be related to CO2. I noticed towards the end of the week that holding my breath for longer helped my form, greatly reduced the effort required to swim and increased the post swim zen mindstate. The stress relief was so profound I was going to make a thread but think it fits here.

same here - swimming in a pond most beneficial - but now too cold and i won't swim in a chlorinated pool
quite a conundrum as to what to do this winter

 

[TheSir]

What is the reasoning for no protein in the evening?

Prevents me from falling asleep until the protein is fully digested, unless I eat a ton of carbs just before hitting the bed. I can't cross a certain threshold and end up being pulled out of the process of falling asleep due to the subtle stress response.

 

[imcoconut]

Thses are the biggest for me:

magensium and zinc during the day.

not sure how i came about this but at night time vitamin c and niacinamide. Specifically taken together literally knocks me out and I have no idea why. Alone each doesn't really do much but it's the combo that works. Also I'll add glycine, tuarine, l-theanine to provide a boost.

And sugar before bed, maple syrup or ice cream. Don't discount the importance of glycogen at night.

Basically if i all the above i always get good sleep.

 

[Luann]

1.Stopping coffee

2.Eating enough calories

Same.

Also using a thinner pillow.

 

[Makrosky]

until the protein is fully digested

Interesting. I have found that days that for whatever reason I would skip dinner or have a super light one, sleep would improve dramatically. More than sleep, freshness the morning after (the refreshment is not a stress reaction due to lack of glycogen). Regardless of macro contents of the dinner, that is.

For coffee... I just consider it now a legalized drug. Not a food anymore. It is when you don't drink it for some months and then have the first one, when you realize it is a powerful drug. I don't feel any difference of having a strong cup of coffe after months of absteinance than taking an amphetamine pill like adderall or something. Not to say they are the same obviously as coffee has so many protective compounds also, but it is a drug.

I am curious how coffee was used in pre-modern times in the places where it is original from (Arabia and Africa I think). I am pretty sure it wasn't drank every day as we do it nowadays in the west. Not even close.

 

[miquelangeles]

Don't want to sound rude but that is hard to believe. Neutral if you are not sensitive to them and have good health, ok. But beneficial?

Not rude at all, I also found it hard to believe until I started reading about fields and electricity in general. There are actually studies showing beneficial effects (surprisingly, of the 50Hz AC fields) on the cardiovascular system and also in diabetes. All types of electricity have been used therapeutically, including the alternating current, the form in which power is delivered to residences. In fact, TENS therapy units use alternating current sometimes in the same frequency as power lines 50-60hz. Yes, they can impact sleep if too strong or, particularly if they are intermittent. But they are a source of electrons just like food, sunlight, air and grounding. Plants also grow bigger and healthier along power lines. So if you are undereating or in oxidative stress they can be beneficial, and detrimental in reductive stress when there is an excess of electrons. I usually turn off all power from the breaker panel when I go to bed, but last December when I had severe COVID I wasn't able to sleep and felt worse unless I turned the electricity back on. It was completely opposite of what I expected, so placebo and nocebo were out of the question. Now I still prefer to turn it off during the night, but I paid more attention to how I feel when disconnected vs connected and I always wake up more energized when it's connected.

 

[Hans]

Best things for me.
- no coffee in the second half of the day.
- big meals at least 3-4 hours away from bed.
- not trying to sleep when a littl hungry (no brainer really)
- kiwi shake before bed
- 1 drop tyromix sublingually (not doing this one anymore since I ran out)
- sleeping in a cool room with a fan on as noise cancelation.
- being consistent. Getting up and going to bed when I have to.
- aspirin and milk if I'm just hot and tossing and turning (non-existent now since I cut out coffee and added the kiwi shake)

 

[Makrosky]

sleeping in a cool room with a fan on as noise cancelation.

ehhh what??

 

[Hans]

ehhh what??

Sleeping in a cool room. Using the fan the keep me cool. Also using the fan as a "white noise" device. I used wrong terminology haha.

 

[AlaskaJono]

Sleeping in a cool room. Using the fan the keep me cool. Also using the fan as a "white noise" device. I used wrong terminology haha.

I have done that for years as well. Cooler air helps me keep the nasal passages clear. Until the missus declared no more 'windy' nights. I liked the white noise effect as well as early morning small noised wake me at 4-4:30 am, and I then have difficulty going back to sleep. And If I get up and start living - making a hot drink, moving around, I will then wake up folks... so I don't in general.