Clinical trial shows that the use of Vitamin D supplement improves sleep quality
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I struggled with sleeping for 20+ years, now I easily wake up early.
The biggest game changer: Sunlight in your eyes within 30 minutes of waking up. Try morning walks for 1 week (without sunglasses) and your life will be changed.
I don't think the sun rises for another hour after I wake up for work.
For me I had to also really avoid light at night. F.lux or Windows Night Mode is not enough. You gotta suffer with strong indoor lightblocker glasses, or use e-ink or something at night.
And in the winter there sometimes isn't enough sun. You need a LOT of lightbulbs to make up the difference. A minimum of 10 100-watt bulbs in my experience, and even more is better.
The real test if this will help you: think back to a time when you were camping, or maybe a child at a summer camp in the woods, or a vacation somewhere without lots of light at night and where you got lots of sun in the morning. Did your sleep schedule naturally shift to become more regular? If it did, then light therapy has a very high chance of helping you.
Indeed. You can measure ambient light with your phone: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.vonglasow.michael.satsta...
Pointing my phone towards the sun gives upward of 4000 lux, whereas the two bulbs in my room barely add up to 1000 from 1m away.
Value for sunlight should even be higher, the bulb is only a little too high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight
You just made me feel I might be on the brink of a startling discovery. Holy hell, I have tried a lot to improve sleep. I haven't tried this. And while there was one confounding variable in my case with camping, it did indeed shift my sleep rhythm to the day/night cycle of the country I was in!
Plugging in some rough numbers, that seems equivalent to a ~170W LED flood light. A 200W version is $70 from Amazon (e.g. [1]). Are the emitted wavelengths crucial or is such a lamp on a timer a viable way to get early "sunlight" in the winter?
1: https://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Daylight-Security-Floodlig...
I point them at the ceiling to get diffused light. I use different combination of some on / off to get the right warmness depending the time of day. Ie. 3000K in early morning / late in the day. Combination of 3000K and 4000K for around 9am. 2 4000K if I feel sleepy.
They work quite well. I suggest trying it out if you have seasonal affective disorder or trouble sleeping
Absolutely changed my life in a positive way. I routinely just want to fall sleep now around 10pm if I slip those on around 6:30-7.
Before i wore the blue light blockers. I’d often lie awake until 12-1am while watching my partner sleep. It was so distressing.
This is why we have smoke detectors...
Sure, that's super easy in summer. I wake up naturally no problem when the rise is up. I've thought many times of getting sun-equivalent lights that I can schedule to turn on for this reason.
I live in Florida - our license plates don’t call it the sunshine state for nothing - but even here the sun doesn’t rise at 5am. Short of blasting my retinas with bright lights soon after reveille, I don’t see where I’m going to obtain sunlight this early in the morning.
(It’s 07:21 local time now, and the sun is just now coming up. It’ll be a beautiful sunrise, but I’ve already been awake 2.5 hours…)
Do you think one of those "simulates natural light" LED lamps are actually equivalent in terms of faking real sunlight?
I don't feel it's bright enough to mimic true sunlight, but it is much brighter than typical light sources. Especially at full brightness on a nightstand.
I've never had problems waking up, so can't speak to those who do. But I would absolutely say it made the experience of waking up smoother and more pleasant.
I'd describe it as a normal waking being jarring, even without alarm, where I have a brief moment of confusion as my brain snaps into consciousness.
Whereas with the light almost every morning was a smoother transition, where I rose to consciousness more gradually, while still sleeping, and then basically opened my eyes already awake.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Simulation-Headspace-Subscrip...
Heads-up for those who care: It's a commercial podcast with sponsors, trojan ads and all, sadly.
Btw. I can wholeheartedly recommend the "big biology" podcast, if you are interested in biology in general.
However I can confirm that sunlight in the eyes is a great way to stay awake during long road trips (ie sunglasses can make me drowsy).
It seems like this might be a passive way to add in some of the benefits of "morning walk in the sun" and "avoiding screens at night", and one that might be more robust to winter. Obviously the lifestyle improvements stemming from going for a walk and not doomscrolling twitter go beyond the light hitting you.
Conversely, I'm not aware of any sleep disorders that are treated by drinking a glass of water in the morning.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorde...
First caffeine-free weekend I had terrible headaches, than came weeks of strong urges (I felt I was an addict). In these weeks I just fell asleep on the couch or even at my desk at work. I slept a lot these weeks, during the day, early in the evening, like my body had catching up to do.
Now I'm fine, I sleep like a baby. I feel really good and have strong concentration.
On moments I have a 'coffee urge' I take a little walk outside, for 10-20minutes. My colleagues know by now, I'm the guy who goes out once or twice a day for a little walk...
Try it for a few months!
The only difference is that after a month or so, I go back to coffee - just at a greatly reduced volume. That first cup is absolutely heavenly.
Found one coffee or tea a day made me feel much more relaxed at end of day.
The first few weeks without caffeine are rough, then I just turn into a more boring version of myself: I go to bed early, have consistent energy levels throughout the day, and I'm a little less intelligent.
I don't really want my energy levels smoothed out throughout the day: getting out of the gate quickly in the morning and getting ahead of my goals for the day is far more important to me, and having a few hours each day where I'm really "on" is better than my brain being a little sluggish forever.
I don't personally have issues sleeping through the night though. (But with caffeine I do shift my sleep a bit later).
Cutting caffeine does seem to be a reasonable place to start for people who are having sleep issues, or anxiety, but for me I've decided the pros vastly outweigh the cons.
If you're interested, I found a not-quite-coffee alternative that seems to satisfy my craving. It's a dandelion root substitute, the brand I drink is Dandy Blend. More like instant coffee than a good ground bean coffee but it does the job.
Hope I can find this in Europe. Here we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cichorium. It is not very bad, but I don't like it much either, I miss some bitter tones. Now I think about it, I can try experiment with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angostura_bitters
Changed to take the supplements in the morning and the insomnia went away.
Edit: Here is the study. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23665342/ - only a single study but still interesting
Same here but mostly brown hair except red in the beard. I suspect it's not limited to red haired folks but that the gene occurs in people with relatively northern ancestors (Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia).
IIRC there were lots of red haired people in the continental Celtic population too. Would they have the same adaptation for less need of sunlight?
Also makes me wonder how the Inuit manage.
I've heard red-beards often referred to politely as gingerchins. Which is oddly fun to say.
Having worked for Scandinavian insurance companies, I can tell you that life insurance near to the arctic circle is much higher as people find it hard living without lots of light.
EDIT yeah here is the reference [1]:
> In the food-production theory, the cereal-rich diet of Neolithic farmers lacked vitamin D, so Europeans rapidly lost their dark-skin pigmentation only once they switched to agriculture, because it was only at that point that they had to synthesize vitamin D from the sun more readily.
[1] https://www.livescience.com/42838-european-hunter-gatherer-g...
The current recommendation is keeping serum levels at least above 30, and more like 40-60. Many many people aren’t in that range.
Often (at least for me) the feeling of needing to pee is greater than the actual need to pee. Realizing this, it's easier to hold it in until morning.
I also pee a lot at night, otherwise.
Physical activity can also help. My theory is that it can help sitting at a computer all day can sometimes cause me to retain fluid and that it's the retained fluid that is being processed when lying flat. If you notice your calves/feet/etc being slightly swollen this could be a sign.
And in the conclusion they add
> Based on the results of the present study, at the end of the study sleep score (PSQI) reduced significantly in vitamin recipients as compared with placebo recipients (P < 0.05). This difference was significant even after modifying confounding variables (P < 0.05).
It’s 44 vs 45 why don’t they use the simple language they started with. It would have been great if they also said how many people felt better by placebo alone.
In the location where this study was done, what kind of lives to these people lead?
Do people living in more relaxed, sunny, quiet, dark-at-night environments sleep better than people who live in cities with constant street noise, much less direct sunlight, and more light pollution at night?
Vitamin D group: 6.75 (2.97) Placebo group: 9.73 (3.04)
Cohen's D: 0.99 (>0.8 is regarded a large effect size)
Side note: The translation "Petersburg’s Sleep Index" instead of "Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index" just cracks me up though! =)
Then I moved to Norway. One strength is sold in most stores - 400iu per tablet. You might be able to buy stronger in the pharmacy, but I had to have a prescription for a higher strength when I had low levels.
And to be fair, 2 of those store tablets keeps my levels high enough. So while 400 might be inadequate, 800 certainly isn't. Even without enough sunlight: I literally cannot get enough during the winter because the sun simply isn't strong enough when it happens to be up.
I'm confident that 2,000 IU daily is safe, though.
The issue is that I fairly far north. You can miss the entirety of daylight in December if you work first shift at a factory (there will be a glow of twilight as you go home). The sunlight we do get in the winter is of poor quality. I'm not even above the arctic circle - it gets worse up there with no direct sunlight. I'm not sure of the extent of food being fortified: I can't see where they've added it to the milk (for example). I could be wrong about this last bit.
There is a lot of fish in the diet, but nonetheless, they recommend the general population take some vitamin D in the wintertime.
• Vitamin A: 5,000 IU (upper limit of 10,000 IU)
• Vitamin D: 600 IU
• Vitamin E: 22.4 IU
You probably never noticed it, or your pills have low-strength dosages (400 IU), which are quite common to find in pharmacies, and personally I don't even bother with those.
Apparently 1 μg = 40 IU for vitamin D, but different per vitamin.
The NHS provides some guidance on doses here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-...
As far as the study goes, it was significant at a p 0.05 level so will wait for replication.
One is activation of the There is a possibility of an autoimmune disease like lupus or MS causing dysautonomia. I also have inappropriate sinus tachycardia and hypertension without obvious causes. All roads point towards the autonomic nervous system.
I guess you alrready know this but 11000 IU is a massive dose of D3 and probably isn't healthy long term.
For some of us, insomnia is a multi-factor disease. So I had to do All The Things. My sleep hygiene regiment is a superset of everything listed here.
Ultimately, I needed proper diagnosis and then treatment of my sources of chronic pain to attain somewhat healthy sleep patterns. Pinched nerves, aka "bone spurs", in my spine.
I definitely had to jump thru all the hoops to get to this point.
If OTC magnesium citrate upsets your stomach, maybe try the other variations. I settled on magnesium glycinate lysinate. (Cheaper than magnesium orotate, which also worked for me.)
Unrelated, out of curiosity, when you say 80% of your training: is it in mileage/time? Or some effort metric like TRIMP, calories, avg. HR, or so? Or something else?
Interesting that you mention sleep HRV. I use the Oura ring and have observed that my sleep HRV is super super low at the moment, like 15/20ms but when I check it in the morning with my polar H10 strap then it will usually come out between 60-80ms. Tried to figure out what causes it but not had any luck so far. I don't think I'm over-training or have any other issues.
I follow Phil Maffetone's training methodology [1], which has worked quite well for me. So currently, 80% of my training by distance/time is between 135bpm and 145bpm. The training is mostly steady runs between 7km to 25km. The remaining 20% is a mixture of progression runs, speed training, and intervals.
Initially, for the first 6 months of training, all my training was below 145 bpm and was quite slow at 6min/km but now I can do 4.30min/km at 140bpm and I'm still getting faster!
Cheers
What an amazing improvement to 4:30 pace at 140 bpm btw! I've had a similar relative improvement over the first year when I think about it, from around 7:00 to 5:20-5:30 at 140 bpm. But my training was mostly 1km intervals at high end of zone 3 (still quite below threshold), translating to a lot of tempo running on average, plus one session of 200s or 400s faster intervals per week. Been stuck with little progress for a while though, and was thinking to try a more polarized approach like yours with higher volume; thanks for explaining it!
"11 Natural Ways to Lower Your Cortisol Levels"
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ways-to-lower-cortisol
Additionally:
1)
My naturopath prescribed supplements. Lots of stuff for night time, going to bed. Like chamomile tea, melatonin, magnesium ortate (for muscle pain), ashwagandha, and L-theanine. And some stuff to perk up in the morning, like DHEA drops. The general idea is to over time nudge the daily cortisol and adrenaline cycle back to "normal".
I'm not recommending this stuff. Just relating what I did, experimented with. For all I know, all the benefits were due to placebo effect. And being very motivated to fix my sleep.
I had first read up on each supplement. I figured none were harmful (to me). So the worst that'd happen is I'd waste some money.
2)
I'm skeptical of naturopathy and against homeopathy. In the future, I believe we'll call the good (useful) bits "nutrition", which will just be rolled up into wellness and eating right.
Probably the biggest benefit of having a naturopath (that I liked) was life coach stuff, being accountable to someone. In that way, I got lucky with the 3rd practitioner. The first two I consulted were total quacks.
3)
I did test my daily cortisol level cycle. Spit tests. At the time, the support for the accuracy of these tests was pretty thin. Even so, my tests before, during, after adopting my sleep hygiene regiment seemed to indicate that my cycle became "normal".
These tests seemed to correlation with my lived experience. Which means almost nothing. Self reporting is notoriously unreliable, which I've experienced many, many times.
YMMV.
My levels of 25(OH)D3 are optimal. It takes slightly over what the real average TUL should be because of my mass and apparently poor absorption.
Edit: Cortisol levels are fine. I also had a complete HPA/G/T workup by an endocrinologist. The results were unremarkable. I even had testing for pheochromocytoma, although this does not rule out other types of adenomas.
For Vitamin D3 in particular:
"The model developed for UL derivation was summarized in 1998 (IOM, 1998), and it acknowledged that the lack of data would affect the ability to derive precise estimates." [0]
Furthermore, an RDA and a UL doesn't work for D3 because the ranges across people don't harmonize to specific "safe" or "adequate" numbers for a given demographic. 1000 IU is too much for some people. [0]
Blood tests trump RDAs. I need over 10k IU per day, but this could cause hypercalcemia, calcification of tissues, and/or calcium kidney stones in other people.
0. https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/files/fnic_uploads//T...
Anecdotal, but several accounts I heard from people I know (and some I’ve read — even in this HN discussion, but the most n=1 scientific is gwern) indicate you need to take the vitamin D early in the day or it would harm your sleep quality. It also makes sense biologically, given that you need sunlight to generate it yourself.
Again, anecdotal - but detrimental to my sleep if taken after midday. If I can’t take it until 10am, I skip that day
Don’t do this without the advice of a doctor and regular serum level testing.
Under Dr supervision, daily vitamin d can be much higher. For example, the Coimbra Protocol for multiple sclerosis can be as high as 40k daily.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Seriously though, I can attest that it seems to do something for sleep/dreams, though it's hard to pin down what. Either I remember more dreams, or maybe it makes dreams more distinct as opposed to merely "things you were thinking of as you fell asleep".
Most people are noticeable calmer and sleep better when they start supplementing magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is extremely common, and even if you eat a really good diet with lots of whole grains and vegetables you might not be getting quite enough (but in that case about half the above dose may be enough to top you off). Anyway, it won't hurt to try and it's not expensive... if it helps, the cost-benefit is huge.
The key is to go outside, get some natural light and sun on your skin. Most of us reading this are vitamin D deficient year after year.
Covid has had an advantage on anyone lacking proper vitamin levels.
That's at least 10 hours of sleep per day, for a large part of the year.
It's also no sleep at all, in some parts of the year, for some countries.
Try doing the same in New York, to say nothing of places like Stockholm.
Getting outside a bit is a great advice most everywhere, though. It's not always going to produce a lot of vitamin D, when you wear clothes mostly covering your skin, but it has other advantages.
At winter time it get really dark really fast and usually there is only sunlight for a couple of hours per day.
So 9am and 5pm respectfully for me I guess.
That being said the key to it all for a relatively healthy person is mental and physical fatigue and lack of stress.
On the other hand... my wife used to live near loading-unloading train station and worked at 2 jobs for some time. Takes her 10 minutes to fall asleep regardless.