I've battled the opposite in the form of clinical, anxiety-driven insomnia my whole life. I've found it utterly debilitating at times and have quite literally struggled since birth, long before electronics and LEDs were common.
I can confidently say you're so right about the number (and type) of variables. Sleep hygiene as we say in the biz is a very complex and personal issue.
I've tried everything under the sun from strict routine, screen avoidance, both abstinence from and ample sex, more reading, less reading, zero caffeine, limited caffeine, ALL THE CAFFEINE, changes to diet, fasting, supplements, and even medication.
There are usually relatively minor, short lived improvements but it's only a matter of time before I'm spending my nights once again staring at the ceiling, mind at full-tilt.
Whenever sleep comes up in conversation, and I mention my struggles, I feel like invariably I'm met with a response along the lines of "you _just_ have to...", and "have you ever tried ...?" followed by some arbitrary rule or herbal remedy.
Since about the the introduction of the first iPad, consensus seems to have formed the root of all sleep evil is screentime.
Sleep (for some) is an incredibly sensitive and personal struggle. Alarmist "mankind is doomed!" make it even harder to understand the greater picture.
It's closely related to diet. There's always some fad trending, and a number of people who find success in choosing a "better" diet almost always have a system they'll fervently claim is The Way.
The science is relatively clear on light though. I just appear to be some form of mutant.
I sympathize, having suffered from bouts of insomnia for decades. I'm with you, in that none of the oft-cited 'cures' ever worked for me.
My most recent 'solution', which has been working better than most attempts, is reading. On my phone, because my eyes are old. Doesn't matter that it's a screen, lit by LEDs. All that matters is that it's not real life (no news, or anything along those lines). Fantasy fiction mostly for me. Gets my mind to quit spinning about real life issues, and after a little bit I can feel myself getting sleepy so I drop the phone.
I wish you nothing but the best of luck finding something that works for you. Few things are more irritating than routinely spending hours in the middle of the night staring up at a dark ceiling.
I can relate deeply to this. Spent the last 2 years trying to get treatment for what turned out to be a neurological sleep movement disorder with an insomnia component. Basically I have sometimes ~150 involuntary limb movements/hr during sleep, they sometimes wake me up but even if they don't I wake up exhausted.
Things are getting better with medication finally, but yeah I've learned not to bring my sleep issues up with people generally. I diet, exercise, avoid caffeine and alcohol yes I've tried magnesium, as well as a slew of atypical antipsychotics, very old tricyclic antidepressants, and a parkinson's medication. Most people have a very hard time imagining what it's like to fight for each hour of sleep, so have a difficult time empathizing I think
No matter what problem you have, you will always be met with the "just do this, it works for me". Eating disorder? Just eat. Can't sleep? Just do some running one hour before bedtime. The invisible disorders are much harder to get any sort of understanding for than the visible ones. If you use a wheelchair because you are missing limbs, noone will tell you to just get up and walk.
had a polysomnograph (aka sleep study) done which allowed them to recognize that I was having these movements during my sleep. My wife had always assumed I was just tossing and turning constantly while awake and I obviously had no clue what was going on without that PSG
The first issue with that is periodic limb movements (or PLMs) by definition can actually range from subtle movements almost like muscle spasms to large limb movements, so constraints would be limited in efficacy for that purpose specifically. This would also surely negatively affect any insomnia, sucks enough waking up at 2am involuntary when I'm not in restraints
That said, my father has a sleep movement disorder as well- but his is more extreme and called REM Behavior Disorder. Basically means he physically acts out his nightmares on a regular basis. His neurologist has been trying to convince him to put barriers on the side of his bed so he doesn't fall out and injure himself but he's been hesitant. sucks getting older.
These don't actually prevent moving. Restraints simply mean the movement won't be large. Great solution to prevent damage if you hit things in your sleep or, say, you have had a stroke and can't control one arm. It just doesn't actually prevent the movement or the signals that make them (muscles will still get the signal to move).
> The science is relatively clear on light though.
AFIK since is clear on:
- a increase in blue intensity reducing melatonin production
- higher melatonin levels before sleep helping with falling asleep
- melatonin is an important factor when it comes to the regulation of the inner clock
but the exact degree to which led light will make it harder to sleep, especially if in combination with other sleep issues, is much less clear cut
For example melatonin doesn't make you sleep, it (simplified) puts your body in a state in which it's easier to fall asleep. While that might sound like it's the same on the first look it's quite a huge difference.
In a certain way you could say melatonin is a major way our body signals itself "now is a good time to sleep", making it somewhat easier to fall asleep.
But people do not need melatonin to fall asleep. Some people can (oversimplified) fall asleep whenever they want, some are conditioned to fall asleep under some specific trigger. In both cases this often works pretty much unrelated to melatonin.
In the other direction if you have some issues which bare you from sleeping, e.g. bouts of anxiety or somniphobia, then having more or less melatonin is unlikely to make it difference, you won't sleep either way (EDIT: until you are strongly sleep deprived, overcome the anxiety or take some sleeping pills).
Anyway reducing the intensity of light in the evening, especially blue light, and making sure you get a lot of light in the morning (i.e. sun light, because your indoor light bulbs are most likely much much less intense) is always a good idea, even if it (hypothetically) would not affect melatonin it still would help with creating healthy habits, and habits are powerful.
I've been a terrible sleeper for about a decade. Weeks on end where I am only sleeping a few hours a night. Can't fall asleep, can't stay asleep, just tired all the time. Tried all the sleep hygiene recommendations but made no difference.
Started supplementing with creatine and about a month later had the best sleep of my adult life.
Shortly after switching creatine brands, I noticed my restless legs were back and I couldn't get to sleep. Switched back to the first creatine brand and a couple weeks later and I am sleeping again.
I don't know if the creatine helps me sleep. I started taking it because I heard on a podcast that it can help prevent cognitive decline as I age. I also started breathing through my nose when I try to sleep so maybe that was what made the difference.
> A major negative is that marijuana is usually grown with heavy pesticide use (even the certified organic stuff) so unless you grow it yourself it isn't really healthy.
Or perhaps there is something lacking in the brand that does not help them sleep? By that I mean maybe there is less creatine than claimed, or it is supplied in a form that is harder to digest.
Really hard to know, but the creatine that didn't seem to help was a cheaper, bulk buy. My guess is that it wasn't as much creatine as it said. Unfortunately, I feel like there is a lot of misrepresentation around supplements.
> Whenever sleep comes up in conversation, and I mention my struggles, I feel like invariably I'm met with a response along the lines of "you _just_ have to...", and "have you ever tried ...?" followed by some arbitrary rule or herbal remedy.
So I hate to be that guy, but did you look into an ADHD diagnoses?
ADHD medications help people with ADHD gain control over racing thoughts, and that allows them to sleep.
How is your breathing while sleeping? If you have sleep apnea you could have subconsciously associated sleeping with axfixiation.
This is the particular problem I have. A CPAP machine remedied the breathing, but it was very uncomfortable to wear, waking me up. Now I use nose strips (Breathe right) and a slightly inclined bed. I still snore but it seems to have improved my breathing. Next on the list: losing weight.
I'm interested in exploring a completely different type of bed design that would allow apnea sufferers to sleep securely with their head face down. Not just a mattress with a head cavity in it, but a design that would be both comfortable yet passively discourage subconsciously turning over in the middle of the night.
OK not to be that guy.. and please don't misunderstand, I assume that like you say you are just different and that individual variability plays a part and people can have sleep conditions.
But since you did not literally mention either thing, how much sun exposure do you get per day? And how much Vitamin D3 do you take during the day, and melatonin at night?
I have had the same experience, and am only listing what helped me because I have never seen it mentioned anywhere, and stumbled upon it myself after decades of trying everything:
For me, it seems to be the combination of 10,000 IU vitamin D before 10 am, and >120gr protein taken at evening. I am approx 85kg.
The protein is the more important component - it improves things considerably but not fully. For more than 20 years into adulthood, I was eating approx 50gr of protein per day (being vegetarian, you have to be deliberate to got more, and I wasn’t). Since this discovery, life has several times taken a path that for a while made deliberate meal planning a luxury, and every time my protein intake dropped, so did my ability to fall asleep at regular hours.
In defense of the layman people, they are not doctors, and they can't recommend prescription drugs.
And sometimes non-doctor solutions do help and complement official treatments.
I started mindfulness neditation a while ago and it did me wonders to help me sleep. At first by the act of meditating, and then by some byproducts on attention span and fleeting thoughts.
I relate very much to this. In particular the well intended but ignorant suggestions.. I think it's often hard for most people to truly appreciate a problem they don't have.
Not a solution that works or is available to everyone, but for me, small doses of marijuana taken just before bed has changed my world.
I’m currently traveling and in a state where that isn’t an option and I haven’t had more then 4 hours in each of the past few nights. Will be glad to get some rest tomorrow.
I (unfortunately) am sometimes exposed to second hand marijuana smoke (from other people in the building smoking) and it does seem like there might be some positive effect in my case (there are a bunch of different types and I have no idea which ones I've been exposed to). A major negative is that marijuana is usually grown with heavy pesticide use (even the certified organic stuff) so unless you grow it yourself it isn't really healthy. Of course, smoking anything is also not healthy but you don't need to smoke it (and shouldn't). Also, many things help with sleep short term but with long term use you go back to normal (except that often quitting makes things worse for a while).
I've also had bad insomnia most of my life (and a non-24 hour circadian rhythm starting somewhat over a decade later). Early on it seemed to be anxiety/racing thoughts related and what finally mostly prevented that part for me was meditation. I still occasionally stay awake due to racing thoughts but not often. Unfortunately, that didn't ultimately help with the insomnia, which got somewhat worse (or at least different) over time :(.
The meditation method I used goes like this:
1) In general, althernate between focusing your attention on your breath as it touches your skin above your mouth (since it does that all the time you can kind of feel it and not feel it at the same time) and either active or passive muscle relaxation (mostly active unless you are getting tired enough not to feel like it).
2) For active relaxation, tense muscles in one group a time (I doubt the exact organization matters, I think I used three or four groups: arms and hands, core muscles, legs, and possibly feet) for several seconds and then feel the contrasting relaxation for a while after you release them. For passive, just tell yourself you are relaxing those particular muscles and try to feel them relax.
3) The time split between focusing on your breath and relaxing muscles doesn't matter, if you are having trouble focusing on your breath then just switch to a relaxation cycle.
4) For getting to sleep, wandering thoughts are fine. What you want to avoid is strong emotional reactions to your thoughts, including a feedback loops such as where something feels like an excitingly good idea (when you are half asleep and not so good at evaluating what is a good idea) and that leads to other thoughts that feel like good ideas or building on the same idea. If you really thing something is a good idea get out of bed and write it down along with enough follow up throughts to find the same stream of thought the next day (should it prove interesting to do so, which is not usually the case in my experience). Otherwise go back to the relaxation/breath cycle when you notice you have a stronger emotional reaction to your thoughts. Other feedback loops include remembering past mistakes or bad events (which can either then go to moment by moment recall of one event or remind you of other similarish situations) and focusing on a difficult current situation (again either going into detail about the current situation or often recalling any memory connected to anyone or anything involved in the situation). It may (or may not) be helpful to think of it as a type of internal drug addiction and you are trying to recognize when drugs that keep you awake are released internally rather than noticing particular thoughts.
5) Visualization can make it easier get to sleep if you are able to do it, so you can try imagining yourself on a warm beach as you do the breath focus and relaxation. I can usually only do that when I am about to get to sleep, if I happen to think of it (and noticing I'm about to get to sleep can make it harder to actually get to sleep :( ). Also, make sure you are actually sufficiently warm (and not too warm if you can avoid it) since that can sometimes be surprisingly difficult to notice even if it is keeping you awake.
6) I didn't become a world class meditator over the decades I've had insomnia, I mostly just try to use it when I notice racing thoughts, which is not that often these days (infrequent enough to not always think of it when it does happen :( ). I think it was 5-10 years that I meditated frequently before racing thoughts were rarely an issue, although it was very quickly obvious that it was helping. I've lately been thinking that I should try it again more regularly to see if it could help some even without racing thoughts (however, I don't think the circadian issue is affected much if at all by the meditation).
Some people find a formal Cognative Behavioral Therapy course to be helpful (or reading books that cover the same techniques), however some of the techniques won't work at all if you have circadian issues (and could make the circadian issues worse).
I've had similar problems since I was a little kid.
I do try and combat the blue light problem with nightmode on all my screens, turning off LED light bulbs, and, as weird as it might be, donning my red LED headlamp to get through the evening without much blue light in my life.
>I just appear to be some form of mutant.
This may be literally true for me given that I grew up in ground zero for the DuPont C8 poisoning.
I can confidently say you're so right about the number (and type) of variables. Sleep hygiene as we say in the biz is a very complex and personal issue.
I've tried everything under the sun from strict routine, screen avoidance, both abstinence from and ample sex, more reading, less reading, zero caffeine, limited caffeine, ALL THE CAFFEINE, changes to diet, fasting, supplements, and even medication.
There are usually relatively minor, short lived improvements but it's only a matter of time before I'm spending my nights once again staring at the ceiling, mind at full-tilt.
Whenever sleep comes up in conversation, and I mention my struggles, I feel like invariably I'm met with a response along the lines of "you _just_ have to...", and "have you ever tried ...?" followed by some arbitrary rule or herbal remedy.
Since about the the introduction of the first iPad, consensus seems to have formed the root of all sleep evil is screentime.
Sleep (for some) is an incredibly sensitive and personal struggle. Alarmist "mankind is doomed!" make it even harder to understand the greater picture.
It's closely related to diet. There's always some fad trending, and a number of people who find success in choosing a "better" diet almost always have a system they'll fervently claim is The Way.
The science is relatively clear on light though. I just appear to be some form of mutant.