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Comment by block_dagger | Hacker News Reader

I have severe sleep apnea as well as insomnia. I may also be a multi-phasic sleeper. In any case my average sleep per night is ~3.5 hours with only ~1.5 hours of deep sleep. I use light therapy, CPAP, medications, etc but none of it solves my problems. I started taking creatine daily a couple of months ago. I've noticed a significant uptick in my cognitive abilities, despite being constantly sleep deprived. TFA doesn't touch on this apparent benefit of creatine, so thought I'd mention it for others who might be suffering from similar sleep issues.

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There was actually a VERY recent study on mega-dose creatine for sleep deprivation:

  > "Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54249-9

You need a dose high enough to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, around 0.3g/kg (so ~30g for a 100kg person).

Apnea sufferer here, for whom cpap stopped working after weight loss. It turned out that my mouth was opening during sleep, reducing the effectiveness of cpap, and after adding a chin strap to keep my mouth shut I have had very few apnea events.

The mouth-tapers aren’t always wrong (though we do always look silly).

https://youtu.be/g8JzXEoT9LI

Kinesio tape seems to be the solution

For sleep apnea you may look into playing the didgeridoo for 30 minutes a day. The circular breathing every day really improve people's symptoms, and I've heard you see results after a few weeks or months. I'm in the middle of trying this but unfortunately I just haven't been doing it every day.

I've also heard just practicing circular breathing by blowing through a straw into a cup of water can produce the same effect but playing a didge is just so much cooler.

Isn’t a didge just a big straw anyway?

"What is this, a didgeridoo for ants?

But seriously, yeah pretty much, usually with some beeswax on one end.

this is trolling, right?

No. Controlled breathwork has real effects and is not pseudoscience. You should read up on it.

I read about it here originally:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48243666

I haven't read into it much but I believe the circular breathing excercises strengthen some of the muscles that tend to relax during sleep so they keep your airway open.

Last year, I was severely sleep deprived, but needed to focus. On a whim, I took 25 grams of micronized creatine and it removed the issue with the dampened cognitive abilities. It just worked. It's nothing I would recommend as a long-term solution to sleep problems, but as a possible solution in a pinch, it could work.

Just a word of caution, 25g has a very strong chance of causing intense bloating. I'm part of multiple athletic teams, and the general consensus is that more than 10g is generally "uncomfortable" for its bloat pressure effects.

So my choice is between brain farts and regular ones... fortunately I work remote!

FYI, your sleep hygiene sounds good, but doctors have started to agree that primary, idiopathic insomnia doesn’t exist. It’s either anxiety or evidence of some severe disease or physiological condition.

So as long as you’re trying things, CBT is the most evidence-based long-term solution for the (very likely) cause of your insomnia.

Not to suggest diagnosis on the internet to people I haven't met, but for me chronic insomnia was actually narcolepsy. Ironic given that it's disease known for excess sleep, but the actual core issue is broken sleep structure. I had actually been supplementing with creatine for the past 6 months or so and recently gave it up. If it was having any effect it was marginal at best. The only thing that works is pharmaceuticals.

Thanks for sharing, that is very interesting. The article quoted several of the studies as saying that the benefits of creatine are mostly on "stressed" population. Maybe that's what's going on here?

It might have some kind of neuroprotective effect. For people who are already very healthy, there may be no measurable difference. But for the rest of us, it may be more helpful.

I'm reminded of something I read about dual n-back. (I forget where, it might have been Gwern page on it.) Someone said that when they are sleep deprived, they feel totally fine, but their n-back score absolutely tanks.

It might be interesting to test that, the intersection of sleep deprivation, creatine and objective measures of executive function. That could give us more data on the "helps most in stressed cases" theory.

I also started sleeping measurably better when I started taking creatine, but the broader evidence strongly suggests this was some kind of coincidence

What dosage are we talking here?

5g/day

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