6. Best Supplements For Sleep – Beginner’s Guide

TL;DR: In the world of sleep, there are supplements that can really help us normalize our sleep-wake cycle. Conversely, there are also supplements one must seriously avoid before bedtime to ensure proper quality of rest for that night. It’s in one’s benefit to learn which are which and use that information to one’s advantage.

Intro

Hello and welcome back Uprvier, biohacker.

Today in the UpRiver sleep column, we will be covering supplements.

Far too many people underestimate the power of supplements in one’s good-night-sleep regiment, while others underestimate the negative spill-over effects of the “awake” supplements they took earlier that day.

Some of which you will have for sure heard of if you’ve ever walked down the vitamin aisle in Costco or local drugstore, but some of which will be completely new to you. Today we have compiled a list for you of the top sleepytime supplements that may be used to enhance one’s sleep. On the other hand, we have also put forward a list of the supplements, vitamins and minerals one ought to try and avoid closer to evening time as they may be disruptive to one’s attempt at sleeping optimally.

It is important to mention before we jump in, that this is an introduction to these supplements and substances. In light of this, this article will focus primarily on exposing you to these supplements rather than exploring them in-depth. As a final cautionary note, even though we will make general dosage recommendations, we are not doctors. We recommend checking with a healthcare practitioner before embarking on a new supplement routine. Great, got that fun stuff out of the way….

Now, without further ado, we present the first nighttime/rest supplement: fighting out of the sleepytime corner, weighing in at 5mg per pill, dressed typically in all white, and whose reputation precedes them, put your eyelids together for….

Melatonin

Melatonin is a hormone that naturally occurs in the body.[1] Furthermore, even though our bodies naturally produce and use melatonin for various functions regarding sleep, melatonin is also produced synthetically in laboratories across the globe to be used as medicine.

Melatonin’s mechanism of action is characterized by its function on one’s sleep-wake cycle and is closely related to one’s internally regulated body clock – your circadian rhythm (Check out circadian rhythm’s HERE). Put simply and dating back to our ancient ancestry, darkness would signal for the release of melatonin in the brain. This would inturn, signal for sleep in the whole body.[2] On the contrary, though, light exposure (of any kind, but especially light exposure from the blue end of the spectrum) signals the decrease of melatonin in the brain i.e. making it harder and harder to catch some shut-eye (For articles on how light affects sleep OR how to sleep better in general check HERE and HERE).

Dosage: 5 – 10mg

Timing: 15-30 minutes prior to desired sleep time.

Next up, we have a supplement that is not only known for its testosterone boosting abilities (click HERE for our article of Supplements and Testosterone), but will have you saying Oh-Mg at how well this thing can help you pass out: that’s right, you guessed it, it’s…

Magnesium

Magnesium is a mineral that is important for sleep, hormone productions and normal bone structure in the body. People get magnesium from their diet, but sometimes magnesium supplements are needed if magnesium levels are too low.[3]

While magnesium can be found in highly fibrous foods like legumes, nuts, and leafy greens to name a few, magnesium is also very well absorbed into the body through supplementation. Magnesium positively impacts sleep by helping the brain regulate neurotransmitters and their secretion. Magnesium ingestion is also linked to the secretion of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which has a calming effect on the brain.[4] Basically, by taking magnesium before one sleeps, one is providing the body with resources to better do what it has to do to send you smoothly into a state of complete rest.[5]

Dosage: The Institute of Medicine suggests a daily dietary intake of 310–360 mg of magnesium for adult women and 400–420 mg for adult men.[6]

Timing: 30 – 60 Minutes before bed

Last up on our sleepytime supplements list, we have a supplement most popular over to the East. A compound found to work synergistically with caffeine for wakefulness and focus, but when used by itself, offers its user a calming and relaxed state. This supplement is of course…

L-Theanine

Found most commonly in green teas (which CONTAIN CAFFEINE), researchers in one study found that doses of 250mg and 400mg of L-theanine greatly improved sleep in animals and humans.[7] In fact, a 2011 study looked at the effects of L-theanine on 98 boys aged 8 to 12. A randomized group was given two 100 mg chewable tablets of L-theanine twice daily. The other group received placebo pills. After six weeks, the group taking L-theanine was found to have had longer, more restful sleep.

While the results are promising, more research is needed before it can be proven as safe and effective, especially for children.[8] In any case though, this is enough to peak a biohacker’s interest, so we thought we’d throw L-Theanine on our list.

Dosage: 200-400mg

Timing: 15-30 minutes before bed.

We’ve now covered 3 supplements used for improving the quality of one’s sleep. These three things alone can be very helpful in your sleeping arsenal, but in combination, they likely offer benefits greater than the sum of their parts. Notwithstanding, we are now going to briefly mention 3 sleepytime bad guys that despite their assistance during hours of desired wakefulness, ought not be anywhere close to your bedtime routine if optimizing your sleep is the priority.

Up first, we have one that our parents warned us about having close to bedtime, it is of course…

Caffeine

Found in tea leaves, roots, and even some foods, caffeine is a compound that in supplement form offers its user strong wakefulness with sensations of being alert and in many cases, focused. Caffeine absolutely has its place for even the casual biohacker, but to take within 6 hours of sleep – and for some an even greater time period – can be very detrimental to sleep quality and quantity.

We recommend: Do not ingest anything over 100mg of caffeine within 6-8 hours of bedtime.

Vitamin B-12

Listen, B-Vitamins are great. They’re very useful for the body’s production of hormones, help with general processes and are a large part of the daily vitamin profile that keep you by and large quite healthy. However, timing is actually kind of important with these guys. If you look in your average energy drink, you’ll notice that B’s are a staple. That is because they help with several chemical processes that are linked to both psychological and physiological energy production. B-vitamin ingestion (especially Vitamin B-12), while necessary in the day, is to be avoided at night as it too may cause disruption as you try to catch some Zzzz’s.

We recommend: Don’t take your B-Vit’s within 2 – 4 hours of sleep.

Modafinil

Our final one on this list is a bit of a nod to more intermediate biohackers. Modafinil, for those who don’t know, is a synthetic wakefulness agent pending legal status in a lot of countries. The countries who have put a legal status on this compound however, do usually favor the side of needing a prescription from your doctor for its purchasing. In any case, if you have been using modafinil for some time or are new to it, it’s important to respect its potency at relatively small doses. This means that you put quite a long period of time between the time of initial ingestion and when you plan to sleep. Remember biohacker, that sometimes we forget the basics. Wakefulness agents do exactly that – keep you awake.

We recommend: Leave a minimum of 12 hours between ingestion and sleep.

Conclusion

There are lots of different supplements in the typical biohacker’s toolbox. Some of which keep you up, some of which put you down. It’s incredibly important that one discerns which are which and as such, when one ought to take which and when one ought to refrain.

Supplements can be a huge help when it comes to sleeping properly, but only if they are done correctly and with adequate understanding of what to expect from various substances. As mentioned earlier, this is just an introductory article to the relationship between sleep and supplementation. Hopefully though, we offered you an insight into what supplements can offer your sleeping routine and habits so that you can use something mentioned herein to aid in your own regiment.

Author’s Motivation

Sleep is one of those things that seems so simple until you begin to delve into the science and theory behind it. Things from when to sleep, to how to sleep, and now what to take and what not to take for sleep. There is lots of noise surrounding what to take and when, but a lot of it honestly, is just people and marketers trying to sell you another pill that probably does nothing for you other than waste your money. So I decided to open the doors to Sleep & Supplementation by sharing some of the small things I wish I knew when I started.

For those interested, adding magnesium and removing B-vitamins at night were my personal heavy-hitting implementations. I highly recommend you give those a shot if you’re looking for increased sleep quality. Sometimes it’s the things you expect the least that end up helping you the most.

Note: Another way to ensure a night of better sleep, is to make sure your breathing is conducive to getting the best rest possible. If you are interested in learning how to sleep better, click HERE.

As always and until next time biohacker, keep moving UpRiver.