Try getting some orange glasses and wearing them when you watch the TV etc.
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A further thought:
What sort of meditation do you use? I have found the NSDR/Box Breathing/Yoga Nidra mix to be useful for emphasising the parasympathetic nervous system (which is what you want to fall asleep). Within this it is particularly the slow breathing out that has the potential to reduce the heart rate and calm down the metabolism.
There is an interplay between thoughts and the HPA axis which can be handled this way.
What I find is things which increase ATP levels also increase my heart rate and cause problems getting to sleep. Hence things which add an extra electron transport for the mitochondria can cause issues. The problem is, of course, that ideally you want the extra ATP.
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I use breath focus meditation. Visualizing the air going in and out of my nose. Saying “in” and “out” in my mind. The idea is to fill my mind with only the thought of breathing. If other thoughts intrude I let them pass. If I am very agitated, I’ll find that my thoughts will run down a rabbit hole. At that point I’ll stop trying to go back to sleep for a while: read a book, get up.
I should use this approach regularly to train my mind to focus. Someday I will.
Breathing exercises that involve breath holds cause me to hold my breath when I fall asleep. Of course I then wake up. Weird but true.
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It might be worth trying a few breath holds, box breathing exercises and then moving onto breath focus. The reason is that the slow breathing out has a physiological effect. Doing say 5-10 of those should not put you to sleep, but could have a beneficial effect particularly on heart rate.
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Paul_2.0
#86
I’m really curious about lithium, but both my mother and grandfather were on it pretty much their entire lives and both suffered from chronic iron deficiency as a consequence.
Even though they were taking it for mental health reasons I can’t quite bring myself to take it.
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Of course, they were most likely taking it at a much higher dose than the dose required for possible, but not proven life extention.
The lithium orotate version has a high safety record. I personally started taking it for anger management.
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That’s it. The dose they were taking was much higher. I haven’t read too much literature on it outside of a therapeutic dose for mental health conditions. I’m not sure if it’s worth it. I feel like if you’re not careful. You can end up taking endless amounts of supplements.
Did you find it helpful for the anger?
Having read the literature
a) I think there is a longevity benefit to low dose lithium
b) I think the mechanism relates to the WNT pathway possibly through GSK3 inhibition or phosphorylation of beta catenin.
c) I think the target serum for that is 50 micromolarish.
Hence that is what I am doing.
When you take lithium above 1 micromolar you run the risk of blocking citrate from entering cells through some of the ion channels (Na-DC1 or Na-DC3). Hence you need to keep it down low.
Incidentally I think the inhibition of the SLC13A family of transporters is the reason for hair loss from high dose lithium as a consequence of reduction of levels of cytosolic citrate (and as a consequence nuclear acetyl-CoA). More citrate=more hair, less citrate=less hair.
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I seem to remember reading some research about molecules being developed for cancer treatment showing real efficacy that worked on the Wnt pathway. Really interesting. I’d love to have a better understanding of this stuff.
What dosage are you using to achieve 50 millimolar?
I started with 7mg per week which I tested and it was too low. I then tested 35mg per week and that was too high. I have been running at 15mg per week and are doing a test, but not got the result yet.
Yes, as I have posted earlier.
I agree with trying to keep the supplement list low and I am constantly trying to cull the amount I take.
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kansel
#93
Interesting. Will read about ultradian cycle since I’ve heard about but not researched. Boy was it ever yesterday a day that had everything to do with what we are talking about in this topic (stress and sleep). due to a personal matter, I couldn’t sleep till 3AM last night. I took 1mg as opposed to 5 and within 20 minutes I was dead a sleep. Woke up 11:15, nine hours later. Apparently, I’ll stick with 1mg from now on.
One observation I have realized from taking melatonin (1mg only, anything over makes me go nuts lol) is that while it is great in helping me sleep, the next day I don’t have the same great feeling I get when I sleep same amount of hours on my own, without melatonin. In rare occasions that I sleep 9 hours without interruption, the next day I feel the most amazing I ever felt. I literally feel that I am 20 younger, no pains anywhere, in excellent mood, my skin and face look so rejuvenated, and I feel so light on my feet, unreal. Unfortunately, I only manage to stay asleep for 9 hours only maybe once per month if lucky even though I wish it could be 3 times a week (I usually sleep 7 hours which is ok, but not ideal for me. If I had a wand I’d sleep 8 hours two night in the raw and the next one 8.5-9 hours).
When I get 9 hours of sleep with the help of melatonin (i.e. last night) while I feel rested, I don’t feel nowhere near how I feel when I do 9 hours on my own (i.e. mood average, look ok not great, a little sluggish etc…).
And with that comes my question: Does anyone have similar experience to speak of? and most importantly would there be a supplement (taken before bed) that might counter some of the effect of melatonin (at least for me a bit sluggishness and maybe lazy feeling)?.
I think the reason 1mg has this different effect is that it does not overwhelm your endogenous supply hence. The serum melatonin does not go down rapidly at about 2am in the morning.
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kansel
#95
desertshores, Thank you for your many great suggestions and contributions on these boards. Have a question: Have you taken them all together as a stack before bed? in other words is there a risk of one cancelling/countering the other if taken same time.
Thank you for the compliment. I enjoy the discussions and arguments in this forum.
No, I haven’t taken them all together as a stack, but, I don’t think any of them cancel out each other.
One I left out was l-theanine. Taking l-theanine 200 mg with 500 mg GABA really calms my mind down if I take them together about 1 hour before bedtime. If all is going well, I don’t use anything but melatonin. Stress, anxiety, excitement, anticipation of the next day’s activities, etc. can make it difficult to slow down brain activity and get a good night’s sleep. The supplements I mentioned are in my arsenal of things to take when I need them.
From my own experience, l-serine is a the top of the list to get an extended night’s sleep.
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kansel
#97
Thanks! will give them a try and see how it goes.
Present data suggest that the consumption of individual dietary supplements does not enhance the health or longevity of healthy rodents or humans. It might be argued that more complex combinations of such agents might extend lifespan or health-span by more closely mimicking the complexity of micronutrients in fruits and vegetables, which appear to extend health-span and longevity. To test this hypothesis we treated long-lived, male, F1 mice with published and commercial combinations of dietary supplements and natural product extracts, and determined their effects on lifespan and health-span. Nutraceutical, vitamin or mineral combinations reported to extend the lifespan or health-span of healthy or enfeebled rodents were tested, as were combinations of botanicals and nutraceuticals implicated in enhanced longevity by a longitudinal study of human aging. A cross-section of commercial nutraceutical combinations sold as potential health enhancers also were tested, including Bone Restore®, Juvenon®, Life Extension Mix®, Ortho Core®, Ortho Mind®, Super K w k2®, and Ultra K2®. A more complex mixture of vitamins, minerals, botanical extracts and other nutraceuticals was compounded and tested. No significant increase in murine lifespan was found for any supplement mixture. Our diverse supplement mixture significantly decreased lifespan. Thus, our results do not support the hypothesis that simple or complex combinations of nutraceuticals, including antioxidants, are effective in delaying the onset or progress of the major causes of death in mice. The results are consistent with epidemiological studies suggesting that dietary supplements are not beneficial and even may be harmful for otherwise healthy individuals.
Lifespan effects of simple and complex nutraceutical combinations fed isocalorically to mice
I recently came across this mouse study focused on the lifespan of F1 male mice fed different combinations of multiple beneficial supplements. The list of supplements tested reads like a cornucopia of what your own kitchen cabinet might contain (or mine). Here is the problem: None of the combinations changed the survival curves and one combination had a statistically worse outcome (p=.02)
The reason for the worse outcome was blamed on the addition or marine oils (EPA and DHA) causing liver dysfunction. The author says this is a known effect and cites another study to back this up.
One of the combinations even included glycine and NAC, more commonly known as Glynac to us, yet it too had no discernible effect.
I wonder if anyone knows more about this 2014 study and whether similar work has been refuted or confirmed elsewhere? Reading it has made me consider discarding most of my supplement stack (except for rapamycin and collagen peptides) and obtaining all my nutrition without the aide of processed supplements. It sure would save a lot of money if nothing else.
One thing that concerns me about this study is that it states “This work was funded by anonymous donors.”
Who are they and why did they want to remain anonymous?
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@NakedMoleRat Thanks for sharing this paper that feeds my nightmare. JK. I was listening to a podcast about mental health yesterday…the discussion included the idea of how hard it is to see the beauty of a tapestry when viewed up close. My mind went to the challenge of understanding which supplements I should take by studying papers about the effect of individual supplements. My ideal is zero non-food chemicals, but I am far from my ideal right now.
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kansel
#100
In all honesty I am also of the belief that there is no supplement or substance that will increase the biological life of humans. However, where I differ from some others is that I believe that the real biological life for humans is somewhere between 110-140, and with food alone it is probably harder to get there. Some supplements will serve a short cut if you will, and hopefully rapa is one of them. Anecdotally, but for some weird reason, I’m not really sold on Glynac even though i do it couple times weekly. For me i have kind of narrowed it down to these as being main factors on HealthSpan and arriving a true biological age:
- calorie restriction to 1500-2000 max, preferably 1500-1600
- organic, or wild protein (i.e. steak or wild salmon) and organic healthy fats, use organic EVOO a lot
-average of 8-hour sleep per day, one or two days per week 9hours
- eat lunch and dinner and nothing in between, or even dinner only
-high intensity, but short period exercise. Personally, i would not do more that max 30 minutes, but I’m a bit on the lazy side by nature and really don’t like physical activity other than sex lol
- occasionally do 2-3 day fast, maybe 2-5 times per year.
- RAPA and some other supplements we mention in here, but to me supplements are more of a feel-good story than really life extension. In other words, if we did what I mention above most likely we will reach 110 but supplement’s will make us look a bit better, and happier while making the journey.
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My personal observation: My shotgun approach to supplements, and I mean by that, taking the supplements that were touted by “gurus” in any decade that I have been alive has served me well (for instance, in this decade I am taking rapamycin and acarbose.) and that most of my contemporaries are dead and I am still alive and well. 
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