Anyone Else Have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome?

[Giraffe]

My guess is that the positive effects of melatonin are all due to its antioxidant effect.

I trust Ray Peat when he says, "you don't want to use something out of context", so I go for means that help in a synergetic way. At least I try to ...

This is from a 2004 article:

Melatonin can cause adverse effects, and long-term safety data are lacking. Furthermore, no information is available concerning the possibility of interactions with either prescription or nonprescription medications.

The Therapeutic Potential of Melatonin: A Review of the Science

 

[Parsifal]

Well, maybe is this an area Ray is wrong about ?
It could be that pigs fed melatonin react in a different way than humans do.
Just like rabbits fed cholesterol get atherosclerosis, while humans don't ( as Ray pointed out)

I agree that what Peat is saying about melatonin and sleep seems a bit strange and less researched that the rest of his work.
In fact, I don't understand why something like obscurity and sleep happening since the dawn of the world would be that bad and stressful and why we should start to put infrared light on our body while sleeping to "protect" and boost the metabolism. The body must be adapted to this "stress" and changing things like putting light doesn't seem very wise, could possibly disrupt circadian rythms because our body is not adapted to it in nature?
Not sure that it would help us, has anyone tried this yet?

So, obscurity is a way to raise Alpha waves in the brain (so GABA?) and that is why when meditating we have to close our eyes. In spiritual cultures like the Druids, ancient Egyptians, Hindus, they used to retreat in caves and similar things to immerse themselves in the dark during several days to meditate, this was a kind of initiation.
On the other hand I do agree that a lot of children fear the dark so it must raise stress hormones in some way.

Peat also says that the adrenalin raises and then latter cortisol to be able to wake us. I don't understand why an hormone like adrenalin would rise during a time where we should relax, this would totally mess our ability to sleep no?

I'm trying to understand more about circadian biology (this is surely the key about DSPS) and the pathway that is used by the body to fall asleep, it seems that Ray says that we only need to lower stress hormones (dopamin, acetylcholine, oestrogens, serotonin, glutamate, etc) and raise GABA to relax to fall asleep while the conventional "knowledge" says to raise serotonin and melatonin?
On the other hand there are some people claiming that they almost don't need to sleep at night. There is a lot to find on this topic.

There is not a lot of informations that seem very good on circadian biology, in fact the more I think about it the more I have questions that will probably never be answered:
How important is synchronisation and signaling in our bodies? I mean, being synchronized to our environment (day and light, is it important to sleep during night) and our organs and biological systems being synchronized between them. Every disease involving inflammation/hormones/cytokines/kosmotropes with metabolic actions like differentiation/dedifferentiation/autophagy/apoptosis/mitosis/anabolism/catabolism, etc.

I don't like how we are so sure of our intellectual abstractions (even if I don't like it I can't help myself but to fall in that trap from times to times) and beliefs and like we are trying to control everything like if we knew the absolute truth of everything.
We are messing so many things thanks to this arrogant set of mind and are destroying no less that our planet.
We are quotting scientific studies everywhere to support our beliefs and it seems superficial nowadays because we find everything and its contrary in studies in biology and medicine, in the end it is only a battle of opinions. Experience alone also seems not enough to find the truth and a danger to fall into superstitions.
This is very exhausting and seems to be a neverending battle. Being a seeker of the truth seems almost impossible in such a world.

The problem with the way that RP is writing his articles and the people are interpreting it on the web is that there is a dualistic perspective, if something is seen as stressful then it is bad and should be totally suppressed (melatonin, serotonin, oestrogens, PUFA's, fibers, etc) and we totally loose the sight of balance.
I don't believe that things are working this way in the body, we are all individuals and our bodies are working differently, we should not forget that as well.

Here is an interesting article about Melatonin that contradicts a lot of things of your last message, what do you think about it Burt? http://butterbeliever.com/the-melatonin-scam/

 

[tara]

post 99395 Ah very interesting!! So that could explain why people with higher thyroid sleep better, melatonin rises with higher thyroid.

Or it could be the simpler explanation that higher thyroid -> better glycogen storage and lower stress hormones -> easier sleep.
Or a combination of these and melatonin and other mechanisms.

 

[tara]

post 99875 Peat also says that the adrenalin raises and then latter cortisol to be able to wake us. I don't understand why an hormone like adrenalin would rise during a time where we should relax, this would totally mess our ability to sleep no?

Sleep is good, but we usually have to wake up in the morning too.
And yes, there do seem to be many people here and everywhere with sleep messed up by stress hormones. Sleeping when you have no resources for recovery and growth may not be all that good for survival either.

 

[Godiva]

I've had this almost my entire life. For me, it has nothing to do with blue lights as I had it as a kid before computers were commonplace. My parents were very strict about bedtimes and I was never allowed to be up past 9 pm so in theory I should have eventually adapted to that schedule (or never deviated from it) but that never happened. I used to rearrange the furniture in my room in the middle of the night because I had so much energy. From the time the sun goes down til it comes up, I'm at my best and have a lot of calm energy. Even if I have only slept a few hours the night before, I still become wide awake when night comes. I've tried everything to change it and at best I can get my bedtime as early as 1 am.

My theory has always been that there had to be a few people who stayed up all night to keep the fire going and watch out for danger. My dad is an extreme morning person and after getting over thinking that I'm just lazy for sleeping in, started joking that we were changing guard as I was often going to sleep as he was waking up. My mom also is a night owl, but not as extreme as I am. My daughter also has my night schedule. Thankfully, I homeschool her so she doesn't suffer the same sleep deprivation I did. Maybe there's something genetic?

Also, maybe Peat is right about having light at night. We did have fires going all night to keep predators away and stay warm. Maybe we adapted to that instead of complete darkness?

 

[charlie]

I was by the fire last night and was wondering what light rays(orange, red, blue?) come from it. Did a quick google search but didn't find anything.

 

[burtlancast]

post 100106 I was by the fire last night and was wondering what light rays(orange, red, blue?) come from it. Did a quick google search but didn't find anything.

Fire has mostly the red-orange, and very little blue.
Fire's a non factor in the blue light effect of suppressing melatonin.

 

[Parsifal]

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... uch-either