slow wave sleep stages NREM 3 & NREM 4?
CarlSagan 09 Mar 2022
Do you know of some accessible things that can enhance our time spent in NREM stage 3 or NREM 4? (3&4 are often bundled together as 3 or SWS slow wave sleep)
This is the deepest sleep where delta brain waves hit & some interesting stuff happens during this.
like 20 second pulses of spinal fluid flowing through the brain washing out cellular debris https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/31672896/
healthy sleepers get most of their stage 3/4 NREM minutes during the first 3 hours. people with poor sleep quality might get 0 minutes of stage 4 and little/fragmented stage 3. a skew towards this is often seen in depression / narcolepsy.
So far i've only come across 240mg GINKGO as a supplement potentially. found this patent https://patents.goog...EP1161252A1/en which details a study where NREM stage 4 was restored in depressed patients by what looks like about +15 minutes at 4 weeks.
^ At first I wondered if it was the high kaempferol content. so i tried foods high in kaempferol before bed which would have given me the same amounts or more (from kale & capers). but noticed no changes apart from maybe faster sleep onset. acutely i didn't tolerate ginkgo well gave me insomnia & I felt spaced out the next day, maybe the mechanism here is the gaba receptor antagonism , but that means going through some pain to see if it works after a month when the receptor density might have increased from the antagonism giving the benefit on NREM.
The only other thing i've seen so far is EXERCISE but studies vary a lot.
the biggest impact I found is in this study -> https://journals.phy...siol.00765.2018 so the best method could be multiple bouts of moderate exercise over the day (at maybe 130bpm 140bpm). they exercised in 40 minute bursts on bikes every 3 hours for 4 sessions, with the last session 4 hours before bed. It gave a 27 minute gain in slow wave sleep & 3 minute faster nrem 3 latency. & they attribute the NREM increase to increased body heat dissipation over night (not the increase in body temperature but the increased heat dissipation)
researched pink noise but it was a dead end. you can get some delta wave changes if set up correctly but studies actually showed a decrease in sws duration.
Please list any more stuff you know of that's shown impact on nrem 3 / 4, preferably that can be gained readily without prescription roadblocks
Edited by CarlSagan, 09 March 2022 - 12:32 PM.
Hebbeh 09 Mar 2022
CynthesisToday 09 Mar 2022
Ketone esters just before bed regularly (but not every time) seems to give me 30-60 minutes more deep sleep AMB Oura ring. Stop eating early (5+ hours before bed). Going to bed early (8pm) also gives me more deep sleep. Possibly, sleep time starting closer to sunset is a key factor in getting deep sleep? Something circadian around the light zeitgerber? Food timing is the second strongest zeitgerber behind light.
Things that degrade deep sleep include not using a wind-down routine, eating late, going to bed late, and altitude. My normal is sea level. A recent trip to 7000ft elevation dropped deep sleep to less than 10min despite the usual stop eating early, bed at 8, ketone esters, etc. Completely regained greater than 60m deep sleep when I returned to sea level.
Edited by CynthesisToday, 09 March 2022 - 04:52 PM.
CarlSagan 10 Mar 2022
I don't have studies but what positively influences my initial 3 or 4 hours of deep sleep quality is melatonin and magnesium with either taurine or glycine. Coincidentally, I use ginkgo with my last dose at bedtime.
Hmm what dose of ginkgo & did you find it had a buildup effect?
Ketone esters just before bed regularly (but not every time) seems to give me 30-60 minutes more deep sleep AMB Oura ring. Stop eating early (5+ hours before bed). Going to bed early (8pm) also gives me more deep sleep. Possibly, sleep time starting closer to sunset is a key factor in getting deep sleep? Something circadian around the light zeitgerber? Food timing is the second strongest zeitgerber behind light.
Things that degrade deep sleep include not using a wind-down routine, eating late, going to bed late, and altitude. My normal is sea level. A recent trip to 7000ft elevation dropped deep sleep to less than 10min despite the usual stop eating early, bed at 8, ketone esters, etc. Completely regained greater than 60m deep sleep when I returned to sea level.
thanks interestingly in humans theres lower REM & an increase in NREM 3&4 when in day 3 and 4 of a fast. https://citeseerx.is...p=rep1&type=pdf they found an increase of around 15 minutes NREM 3+4 during the first 3 hours of sleep.
could point to ketones being useful here
I have some MCT oil here & good doses of c8 or mixed c8 c10 MCT oil can increase ketones without fasting/no carbs. so some of that might be worth a try 2-3 hours before bed. according to this there should be an acute effect at 20ml / 20g that mostly comes from c8, largely increased impact when taken without a meal compared to with, & peak ketones increase in plasma by 3 - 5 hours https://www.frontier...2019.00046/full
that reminds me i did look into some diet factors.
there's a mix in results but in general (apart from sleep onset) meal timing wasnt as impactful on sws as the carb contents are -
high carb intakes >350g or high carb contents of the last meal before bed = lower SWS
https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC5015038/
Hebbeh 10 Mar 2022
Hmm what dose of ginkgo & did you find it had a buildup effect?
60 mg 4 times per day. Yes, initially I did find it could have a tendency to cause headache but eventually I worked up to the 4 doses and don't notice any negative issues anymore. I've been using ginkgo for years now.
CarlSagan 14 Mar 2022
This area looks to be under-researched / lacking studied compounds that work well, surprisingly
Lavender oil breathed in for 2 minutes on 8 minutes off, holding near chest, 3x for half an hour before sleep, did not increase sleepiness, did increase slow wave sleep in all subjects in the first cycle by 5 minutes. & "increased vigor the morning following exposure" (study funded by the non profit sense of smell institute)
https://www.research...g_Men_and_Women
released 1.5 hours into sleep & stopped 1.5 hours before waking in bursts 1 minute on 4 minutes off to avoid smell fatigue improved subjective sleep quality, & showed decreased alpha wave & increased delta wave power, with 2 minutes increased SWS time. the n3 stage increased in duration after lavender oil was administered [probably would've seen more actually administering it before sleep & at onset instead of when the most important stage is almost over] https://www.nature.c...598-020-80171-x
Curious if Hesperidin flavanoid could work here as its derivative hesperitin is a 5ht2 antagonist which has been linked to deep sleep before. (tho i tried cyproheptidin which is a 5ht2 antagonist too, and noticed no benefits on sleep quality or excessive bizarre vivid dreaming & exhaustion on wakeup which is linked to skewed lacking NREM increased REM sleep/depression, but it also has major effects on other areas so. it also had zero effect on my hunger which is typically very low). https://www.gastrojo...(08)00357-0/pdf Peaks in plasma around 5 - 7 hours after drinking a lot of orange juice https://academic.oup...1/2/235/4686993 https://www.nature.com/articles/1601547 so test would be around 5 hrs before sleep. maybe 300mg on empty stomach would be a decent test.
Edited by CarlSagan, 14 March 2022 - 02:50 PM.
CarlSagan 16 Mar 2022
Edited by CarlSagan, 16 March 2022 - 03:05 PM.