Really appreciate the long-term trends framing over single-night accuracy. The coffee effect being the only statistically significant predictor after regression analysis is fascinating—most people dunno their afternoon latte still has that much active caffeine at bedtime. The 3AM wakeup issue resonantes hard; glad you found the 4-7-8 breathing helps. I've had similar results with ProdromeGlia showing improvements even when CBD didn't move the needle at all. The forced attention insight is underrated too.
Let's say you can detect when you are moving, what does that tell you other than that you're not in REM sleep? I've given up on sleep tracking, beyond keeping a record of when I go to sleep and when I get up...
Well they claim they’re “clinically tested” so who am I to argue.😜 I track sleep now only because it’s passive and requires no effort but like you I really only bother noting bed time and rise time.
Great insights Richard! One experiment to consider: my deep sleep kept increasing as measured by oura even below 30F. More than doubled compared to room temperature.
Hmm…that would explain why I seem to sleep better on camping trips. Makes some sense mechanistically too: we are probably designed to hibernate in the cold
I've used a sleep aid for decades, Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic that is sometimes prescribed off-label for sleep, 25 or 50 mg being common dosages. I think sleep is too important to get hung up on avoiding a prescription.
The mechanism at low dosages is as a sedating antihistamine, about 4X stronger than Benadryl. Both of these meds have short half lives.
The antidepressant trazodone is also used in the same way, being prescribed off-label for sleep. It, too, has a short half life.
I've never measured REM sleep, no, am not nearly that ambitious. I became familiar with Seroquel because my old psychiatrist in Milwaukee was familiar with it and frequently used it off-label for nonpsychotic patients. He told me 25 mg was too much for some people. I've not had that experience, but people vary tremendously in their reactions to meds. The antipsychotic dosage is much higher, roughly 200-800 mg/day.
I believe trazodone is more widely used for sleep, perhaps more by GPs. As a prescriber, I'd be concerned about trazodone's alpha-1 antagonism possibly causing orthostatic hypotension in older people. I suffered a concussion myself once years ago on another alpha-1 blocker fainting in the middle of the night getting up to go to the bathroom. I woke up feeling terrible with a deep bruise on the back of my head, and recurrent ocular migraines visible for weeks afterwards in the area of my field of vision corresponding to the brain bruise.
Seroquel to me is more conservative. There are other choices available, such as Ambien, which has a different set of problems (I think this is a good med myself). But what I'm trying to emphasize is the necessity of a good night's sleep for optimum health. Numerous studies have shown that poor sleep is detrimental in multiple ways.
Ambien is designed as a sleep med and has a much shorter half life. It would probably be less likely to cause morning fogginess than Seroquel, though, I personally don't have problems with this. I never used Ambien every night but have known doctors who prescribe it that way, and I believe this is fairly common. Ambien is a better choice that way than a true benzodiazepine like Halcion, which should never be used every night. I did so once and went through terrible withdrawal symptoms.
Part of the reason I use Seroquel is my relatively heavy alcohol use - red wine with dinner every night. While Ambien is a very safe med, it isn't especially prudent to combine it with alcohol because they both work on the GABA system. Typically, something like a 0.40% blood alcohol level has a pretty good chance of causing death. Taking Ambien with alcohol will lower that lethal BAC, perhaps to 0.30% or even lower. People have been killed from that type of effect.
Really appreciate the long-term trends framing over single-night accuracy. The coffee effect being the only statistically significant predictor after regression analysis is fascinating—most people dunno their afternoon latte still has that much active caffeine at bedtime. The 3AM wakeup issue resonantes hard; glad you found the 4-7-8 breathing helps. I've had similar results with ProdromeGlia showing improvements even when CBD didn't move the needle at all. The forced attention insight is underrated too.
Let's say you can detect when you are moving, what does that tell you other than that you're not in REM sleep? I've given up on sleep tracking, beyond keeping a record of when I go to sleep and when I get up...
Well they claim they’re “clinically tested” so who am I to argue.😜 I track sleep now only because it’s passive and requires no effort but like you I really only bother noting bed time and rise time.
Thanks!
Great insights Richard! One experiment to consider: my deep sleep kept increasing as measured by oura even below 30F. More than doubled compared to room temperature.
Hmm…that would explain why I seem to sleep better on camping trips. Makes some sense mechanistically too: we are probably designed to hibernate in the cold
I've used a sleep aid for decades, Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic that is sometimes prescribed off-label for sleep, 25 or 50 mg being common dosages. I think sleep is too important to get hung up on avoiding a prescription.
The mechanism at low dosages is as a sedating antihistamine, about 4X stronger than Benadryl. Both of these meds have short half lives.
The antidepressant trazodone is also used in the same way, being prescribed off-label for sleep. It, too, has a short half life.
Interesting! How well does it work? Have you ever measured your REM/Deep sleep with/without the drug?
I've never measured REM sleep, no, am not nearly that ambitious. I became familiar with Seroquel because my old psychiatrist in Milwaukee was familiar with it and frequently used it off-label for nonpsychotic patients. He told me 25 mg was too much for some people. I've not had that experience, but people vary tremendously in their reactions to meds. The antipsychotic dosage is much higher, roughly 200-800 mg/day.
I believe trazodone is more widely used for sleep, perhaps more by GPs. As a prescriber, I'd be concerned about trazodone's alpha-1 antagonism possibly causing orthostatic hypotension in older people. I suffered a concussion myself once years ago on another alpha-1 blocker fainting in the middle of the night getting up to go to the bathroom. I woke up feeling terrible with a deep bruise on the back of my head, and recurrent ocular migraines visible for weeks afterwards in the area of my field of vision corresponding to the brain bruise.
Seroquel to me is more conservative. There are other choices available, such as Ambien, which has a different set of problems (I think this is a good med myself). But what I'm trying to emphasize is the necessity of a good night's sleep for optimum health. Numerous studies have shown that poor sleep is detrimental in multiple ways.
My wife and I have used 5-10 mg of Ambien (zolpidem) for years. Would you recommend trying something like Seroquel for long term use?
Ambien is designed as a sleep med and has a much shorter half life. It would probably be less likely to cause morning fogginess than Seroquel, though, I personally don't have problems with this. I never used Ambien every night but have known doctors who prescribe it that way, and I believe this is fairly common. Ambien is a better choice that way than a true benzodiazepine like Halcion, which should never be used every night. I did so once and went through terrible withdrawal symptoms.
Part of the reason I use Seroquel is my relatively heavy alcohol use - red wine with dinner every night. While Ambien is a very safe med, it isn't especially prudent to combine it with alcohol because they both work on the GABA system. Typically, something like a 0.40% blood alcohol level has a pretty good chance of causing death. Taking Ambien with alcohol will lower that lethal BAC, perhaps to 0.30% or even lower. People have been killed from that type of effect.
Thanks!!