Comment · Tue, December 24, 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
I’ll have to become more familiar with metabolic pathways/rate-limiting enzymes. Are you essentially saying that the bacopa is like training wheels rather than a crutch for melatonin production?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
It's like teaching a man how to fish instead of giving him a truckload of already caught fish. LOL
Tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) is what converts L-tryptophan to 5-HTP. Then aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) converts 5-HTP to serotonin. Then serotonin N-acetyltransferase converts serotonin to N-acetyl serotonin. Then S-adenosyl L-homocysteine converts N-acetyl serotonin to melatonin. You can see there are a lot of steps in between that control how much is made and when. Keeping that process in balance is a good idea. If you up-regulate TPH, you not only eventually result in more melatonin, but you keep that signaling cascade intact. On top of that, 5-HTP and L-DOPA share the same rate-limiting enzyme AADC. So L-DOPA is created from L-tyrosine and 5-HTP is created from L-tryptophan, then they balance with each other at AADC to keep things steady. This is why some people can find bacopa demotivating over time. If you increase 5-HTP too much without a concurrent balance in L-DOPA, your dopamine levels fall in relation to serotonin. This is why I suggest taking L-tyrosine or DLPA with bacopa to balance that out.