@roger,
Quote:I've taken melatonin to no effect
Personally nothing puts me to sleep faster than a big Thanksgiving turkey dinner ;P
@OmSigDAVID,
Y, oh Y should I take the magnesium? The suspense is killing me...
@FBM,
FBM wrote:Y, oh Y should I take the magnesium? The suspense is killing me...
I take it against painful cramps.
@OmSigDAVID,
Cramps aren't socially unacceptable, though. Not saying I never do anything socially unacceptable, but I'd at least like to know what it is before I do it.
@FBM,
I drink a mineral water that has magnesium and calcium in it; wards away foot cramps, which I rarely have, maybe once a year or two years. It's probably silly, but I like the taste of it besides all that; the brands of the bubbly mineral water I like are Apollinaris, Gerolsteiner, and San Pellegrino. Wikipedia says what is in them.
@ossobuco,
I think I've seen San Pellegrino over here. I'll keep my eyes peeled for it.
@chai2,
chai2 wrote:btw, the reason you take the magnesium in the ZMA capsules is
to avoid the common socially unacceptable effects of the mag. Remember, empty stomach.
I imagine that when Chai gets back,
she 'll tell us,
explain it to us, in better detail.
@OmSigDAVID,
The suspenders is killin' me.
@FBM,
I understand, from Robin Williams,
that a belt will do it to u too.
pros and cons re magnesium here -
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-998-magnesium.aspx?activeingredientid=998&activeingredientname=magnesium
Me, if I want to sleep, I start reading a history or a non fiction article - I like these in the daytime, but late at night: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
@ossobuco,
Ugg. Not me. I get deeply engaged by history and non-fiction. If I want to get bored enough to sleep, I'd have to dig into fiction. My own imagination is a lot more interesting to me than what someone else imagines.
@FBM,
You know, I was listening to NPR last night and there was an interesting piece on sleep.
Before the evolutionary wise recent invention of the light bulb, people would pretty much go to sleep soon after dark. However, we would wake up later, be awake for a couple of hours, then go back to sleep until light.
If you Google "segmented sleep" you'll find a lot of information, like the below...
SEGMENTED SLEEP
“Historically human beings naturally slept in two distinct phases, with a period of wakefulness separating the two phases. There is evidence from sleep research, as well as from the reports of individuals, that this bi-modal sleep pattern, combined with a midday nap results in the experience of greater wakefulness during the day time, than uninterrupted sleep. During that period of wakefulness, the brain secretes high levels of prolactin, a hormone associated with a feeling of calm and well-being.
Historically this time of wakefulness between the two sleep segments was considered a special and even sacred time. Laborers tired from working the fields would have the energy to have sexual relations after their first period of sleep, people engaged in spiritual practices such as prayer, reflection and meditation, and others used the quiet time to read and write. Dreams were more available to be remembered during that time than upon awakening in the morning.”
Segmented Sleep
Segmented Sleep with a Siesta
“The historian Robert Ekirch summarized in his book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past , the abundant historical evidence that humans previously slept in two separated segments. This custom was common knowledge and there are many references to it. Here is an interesting passage from that article;
He unearthed ”more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern – in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.
During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.
And these hours weren’t entirely solitary – people often chatted to bed-fellows or had sex.”
A doctor’s manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day’s labour but “after the first sleep”, when “they have more enjoyment” and “do it better”.
Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century. This started among the urban upper classes in northern Europe and over the course of the next 200 years filtered down to the rest of Western society.
By the 1920s the idea of a first and second sleep had receded entirely from our social consciousness.
He attributes the initial shift to improvements in street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge in coffee houses – which were sometimes open all night. As the night became a place for legitimate activity and as that activity increased, the length of time people could dedicate to rest dwindled.”
Some people might think they can simply wake up and go back to sleep, but this does not yield good results. Without at least an hour and a half awake between segments, the body treats the two segments as one interrupted monophasic sleep the hormonal surge and sleep regulation does not happen. Jessica Gamble suggests that most people will spend two hours awake between segments, some people may be awake for more or less. Perfect timing doesn’t matter for this kind of schedule, not as much as other more hardcore schedules, so don’t worry about one or two nights that don’t allow you to sleep as you planned. But as always, consistency is healthy. Early to bed, Early to rise, with a few hours awake between, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
It is hypothesised that this segmentation is the origin of the ‘graveyard’ hours most humans experience – a sudden and strong wave of tiredness that hits around 3-4.30 AM. It is proposed that this wave of tiredness is caused by a surge of progesterone which causes sleepiness. This is a sign of healthy sleep, and supports the segmented sleep theory, as a segmented sleeper would need a physiological cue to take their second segment of sleep after being awake for a few hours.
SEGMENTED SLEEP AND SLEEP ARCHITECTURE
There are many changes to the sleep architecture when you adapt to segmented sleeping. Normally SWS will be spread out across the night, but it will accumulate in the first three hours of your sleep, usually resulting in higher delta band activity and deeper sleep. Normally choline will fluctuate throughout the night, but when you wake up your brain will start to refill it’s banks of choline and when you sleep your second segment you will have cholinergic REM sleep, which means you will have more dense REM and will remember your dreams more easily, and more likely dream lucidly.
Light sleep will usually decrease, and your overall SWS and REM sleeps will increase, so some people may find they sleep less, others may find they sleep better.
SEGMENTED SLEEP AND HORMONES
There is evidence that the prolactin hormone surge associated with regular and stable night sleep segmentation can lead to improved sleep architecture, increasing restorative SWS in the first sleep, and increasing REM in the second sleep.
This prolactin surge in the first segment of the night can be regulatory of the entire day’s hormonal secretions! Having a high peak prolactin in the night, and repartitioning SWS into the first three hours of the night will mean there is less prolactin secreted throughout the day.
For the biology nerds:
Prolactin enhances the secretion of dopamine and hgh, which enhances the delta wave SWS. Prolactin also down-regulates sex hormones, so when the prolactin is high and blocking other hormones there effectively is a sex-hormone rebound when the prolactin secretion stops when you wake. When the prolactin stops and the rebound begins, the hypothalamus secretes gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). The GnRH will signal the pituitary gland to produce and secrete luteinizing hormone (LH) and FSH. LH orders the production of progesterone, DHEA kickstarts the production of testosterone (this is why most men get erections in the morning) and the DHEA combined with the progesterone raises body temperature and keeps the body warm at night.
This is all a very, very healthy process, as ideally testosterone is highest in the morning, and prolactin should not be produced in the day unless under very specific circumstances.
Monophasic sleepers will only produce a very small dose of midnight prolactin, or not get it at all, so the entire day’s hormone regulation becomes very sluggish, or doesn’t work at all! Testosterone does not get secreted until the later hours of the morning… some people will constantly produce small amounts of prolactin throughout both the night and the day to make up for lack of midnight surge which develops prolactin resistance and prolactinema… prolactin interferes with other hormones which results in low testosterone, low estriol, low esterone, and high estradiol which results in fat gain… the dopamine system becomes exhausted and ineffective at producing GnRH resulting in low libido. Many doctors will attribute this to disease caused by general aging, but it could be a result of bad sleeping habits and forced monophasic sleep.
To reiterate, the result of no midnight prolactin surge is constantly secreted prolactin. Estradiol is needed to produce prolactin throughout the day. Estradiol is about 10 times as potent as estrone and about 80 times as potent as estriol in its estrogenic effect, so is there an estrogen-type imbalance and effective estrogen power to effective testosterone power becomes imbalanced. It is most noticeable in women as they age. Not only does high effective estrogen cause fat gain in the belly, and chest areas, but it is also related to many diseases.
TL:DR
Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise… some hours at night and a nap in the day keeps the diseases at bay. Have a 3-4 hours of sleep around dusk, and some sleep around dawn.
So, what some people may consider insomnia is just your body getting sleep in the way our ancestors did.
Oh, and the reason to take ZMA (yes the side effects of magnesium alone can be diahrea, gas) is not not only avoid these effects, but as an additional benefit.
When a male takes ZMA, it keeps testosterone from converting into estrogren. For a woman, taking ZMA does the opposite, keeping estrogen from converting to testosterone.
I can tell you from personal experience that is true. I went through menopause in I think my mid to late 40's. I'm going to be 56 very soon.
I had started getting/had gotten that post menopausal thing where the sharp difference between male and female bodies start to blur.
Within oh, 5 or 6 week of starting the ZMA, I glanced at myself after getting out of the shower, and was shocked (pleasantly). I stood and looked, and sure enough, curves had come back that I hadn't noticed weren't so curvy anymore, and I somehow looked more feminine. For my husband, changes occured in him too, re muscle mass being more easily built up.
So, while magnesium is something most people are deficient in, it's good for many things besides just leg cramps. It's a natural relaxer, it's good for the heart (under a doctors supervision) etc. Taking it in the form of ZMA increases the benefits exponentially.
@chai2,
chai2 wrote:Oh, and the reason to take ZMA (yes the side effects of magnesium alone can be diahrea, gas) is not not only avoid these effects, but as an additional benefit.
When a male takes ZMA, it keeps testosterone from converting into estrogren. For a woman, taking ZMA does the opposite, keeping estrogen from converting to testosterone.
I can tell you from personal experience that is true. I went through menopause in I think my mid to late 40's. I'm going to be 56 very soon.
I had started getting/had gotten that post menopausal thing where the sharp difference between male and female bodies start to blur.
Within oh, 5 or 6 week of starting the ZMA, I glanced at myself after getting out of the shower, and was shocked (pleasantly). I stood and looked, and sure enough, curves had come back that I hadn't noticed weren't so curvy anymore, and I somehow looked more feminine. For my husband, changes occured in him too, re muscle mass being more easily built up.
So, while magnesium is something most people are deficient in, it's good for many things besides just leg cramps. It's a natural relaxer, it's good for the heart (under a doctors supervision) etc. Taking it in the form of ZMA increases the benefits exponentially.
Thank u. Gas.
I suspect that Vitamin C produces gas.
I did not wanna put words in your mouth.
For years, I have noticed that if I take
my Potassium-Magnesium capsules too ofen
(at 12 hour intervals) then I stink myself out,
requiring too many showers in a day.
The stench issues from my right armpit.
I
wonder what ZMA is.
David
Read the Wiki on it and, by Thor, I'm sold on the ZMA. Looking for an online source.
I don't find anything much new here. I think most people who drink heavily know pretty well whether or not they qualify as alcoholics, although the true alcoholic may be in denial and lie to him/herself about their condition. But this study is just another one of those things that provides medical confirmation for a generally known and accepted fact.
I am an alcoholic who has been sober for more than 19 years now. I know the difference between a drunk and an alky. Toward the end of my drinking I could not imagine going an entire 24-hour period without a drink. It took precedence over virtually everything else. I would steal to get a drink. That's an alcoholic, A heavy drinker can stop drinking without any help if that's what they decide they want to do. Drinking is fun. For an alcoholic, drinking isn't really fun. It's an obsession and a compulsion.
