Posted by JLx on October 13, 2005, at 19:35:05
In reply to Re: Anyone Have Luck With Melatonin For Sleep?, posted by LOOPS on October 13, 2005, at 15:35:17
> JLx -
>
> how much mag do you take? Which kind? (Sorry, too lazy right now to look at back posts).> JLx -
>
> how much mag do you take? Which kind? (Sorry, too lazy right now to look at back posts).I'm always playing around with various kinds and doses.
I've been experimenting just recently with Doctor's Best magnesium glycinate/lysinate with biopterin. http://www.iherb.com/magnesium4.html I didn't notice anything special about it, and the tablets are kind of clunky to swallow. So I think I'm going back to Carlson's mag glycinate brand, which is the same price per tablet, 12 cents, but is twice the amount of magnesium.
I usually take between 4-600 at night. Sometimes I take another hundred or couple hundred more. Sometimes I mix it with a couple capsules of magnesium taurate. Magnesium taurate on its own is less sedating to me. I think it may be good to mix it with the mag glycinate though. I've also mixed mag glycinate and mag malate. Mag citrate is the most likely to produce diarrhea for me, so I don't use that any more at all.
Just recently I bought some magnesium orotate in powder form. Tastes terrible, so I stuffed some capsules, and have been taking that in the morning sometimes. I haven't decided how this feels, still experimenting and am not a very good monitor and record keeper of my symptoms. I want to pay more attention to that.
Larry and I had a discussion about it last spring, in the uridine/citicholine thread. He speculated that the orotic acid, as also in lithium orotate, may do something on its own.
Mag orotate is recommended for heart disease, I notice.
I like magnesium a lot, but calcium feels awful to me. That's how I felt for years prior to magnesium. I only take a little calcium with my magnesium at night if I'm not eating any dairy.
> I'm juried out on the melatonin. I've been taking 1mg sublingual every night for the past couple of months. It helps me fall asleep, but then I wake up 3-4 hours later and then every hour after that. Hard to tell as I've had chronic insomnia all my life. Right now I'm taking 200mg mag glycinate, 1g taurine and 300mg calcium at bed which is helping.
Eating sugar contributes to insomnia for me. And some food dyes too. I love M&Ms but I know if I eat them, I will be insomniac that night. Even worse is diet Ruby Red Squirt, another favorite. In that one I suspect it's the red dye and the aspartame together.
> Tried the mag glycinate on its own and bam, was severely depressed and sluggish all weekend. Also got a candida flare up. Overdosed I think - 600mg mag one night without calcium. Couldn't get out of bed. Seem to need the calcium. Am awaiting mag citrate through the post soon.It's weird how it goes for different people. My sister finds magnesium glycinate and magnesium in general very stimulating. She can't even take an Epsom salt bath before bed or she will be too stimulated to sleep.
> Well so far though I haven't needed my sleeping pills at all, which is good. Would like to sleep 7-8 hours straight though.
Me too. I can sleep 6 hours straight but not more without waking up. Sometimes I then sleep another hour or two, but not often. My understanding is that it's due to too much cortisol always circulating. Per "The Cortisol Connection" by Shawn Talbot. He said that our lifestyles where we stay up too late contribute to that, because the normal rhythm gets disturbed. He said that sleeping between 10 and midnight was very important in regulating that rhythm. I've read that elsewhere too. He said to start turning off lights in the evening, avoiding computer or other work, and just in general winding down much earlier than most of us do. He also said that he takes theanine in the evenings to facilitate this process.
The thing about sleeping between 10 and midnight feels quite dramatic to me. The first time I forced myself, I woke up about 1 AM feeling so refreshed, I thought it was morning! It's hard to do though for this night owl.
Have you ever tried really darkening your room? I tried that once per some book I can't remember the name of. I didn't read the book, just all the reviews on Amazon. It said to cover all LED displays, all light peaking through or around curtains, and basically just every source of light. I tried it, slept like the dead and felt drugged and terrible the next morning -- just like I did when taking too much melatonin. I still cover my clock and other displays, but don't bother with the no-light-peaking-through-or-around-curtain thing.
If you're worried about melatonin long term, maybe more darkness would work instead.
JL
poster:JLx
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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050924/msgs/566577.html