Comment · Fri, December 20, 2019
Anyone else getting insomnia from sleep support?
Original post in this thread
Greyone · 7 points
For the first week, Sleep Support was giving me the best sleep of my life. At the peak of the benefits, I was hitting 3:30+ of deep sleep and waking up feeling incredible. Now that's all changed. It still causes drowsiness, and I almost doze off but it feels like my brain is "stuck" on. I've tried adding plenty of magnesium, 300mcg of melatonin, 400mg of phosphatidylserine, and 4mg copper (to offset zinc) but nothing works. The only way I'm able to "turn off" the weird head sensation is with a dose of ZZZquil.
Is it the Zinc that has somehow started causing too much stimulation? I'm hoping to soon try supplementing with the individual components one by one but need to wait until I have the extra funds. It was pretty devastating to start experiencing this since the initial week was so pleasant. Nothing else was added or removed from my stack at this time, and I'm taking very little else at the moment.
What they were answering
AromaticAminoAcid · 2 points
Why don't you like to regularly use melatonin? I've found it dramatically helps my sleep/sense of well being the next day, but upregulates libido which I am trying to avoid. Otherwise I would be taking it for at least a few months to restore circadian harmony. Not sure if lemon balm or your new magnolia bark would suit my goals better: calm without increased libido or harsh DHT inhibition. Probably very difficult balance to achieve.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Because melatonin is a hormone that mainly controls your circadian rhythm. If your sleep cycle is steady, there is no need for it. Your body should naturally be making melatonin, and if it is not, you should address that instead.
The bacopa in Sleep Support up-regulates tryptophan hydroxylase, which increases your body's production of 5-HTP, which becomes serotonin, which becomes melatonin. That is a more natural way of increasing melatonin, without throwing off the balance of other systems. I prefer to keep my rate-limiting enzymes in place if I can. There are so many secondary signaling cascades that we don't fully understand yet. Skipping rate-limiting steps in the body on a regular basis is not something I think should be done long-term.