So, I've been thinking about sleep quite a lot lately.
Four and half years ago, I had a sudden change in sleeping habits. I went from average sleep quality (mostly slept all night but non-restorative) to barely sleeping (between 0.5 to 5 hours a night, avge probably between 2 and 3 hours). At the same time, a pattern of being tired but wired during the evening and the early hours of the morning began.
To cut a very long story short, this situation persisted for almost a year until I took methylB12 one evening. Within half an hour I went from horribly wired but tired to profoundly sleepy*. I slept all night and dreamed vividly for the first time in I don't know how long. For some time, I could rely on the B12 to induce sleepiness and give me a good night. I didn't take it every day, just as and when I needed it.
Over time, the B12 has had less and less effect. It doesn't provide good sleep any longer. Something has changed.
Over recent months, I've only been sleeping between about 1am and 5am and getting more and more frustrated. A few weeks ago, I started taking the probiotic
C. butyricum. I do tend to sleep marginally longer but I'm more relaxed about not sleeping properly now, so even if I'm not sleeping after 5am, at least I'm calmly resting. For a few days I was becoming a little sleepy at bedtime but no longer.
About 10 days ago
@SDSue started
this thread and I downloaded the Sleep Cycle app and have used it every night since. What it confirms is that I don't get an awful lot of deep sleep and I seem to have a tendency to wake straight out of it. It also tends to suggest that the reason I'm not currently able to recall any dreams is that I'm very unlikely to be spending much time dreaming.
So, next I noticed
this post by
@Thommo and I watched the presentation by Dr Stasha Gominak about sleep and vitamin D with a short mention of vitamin B12. According to Gominak, there is an optimal vitamin D zone for good sleep, between 60 and 80 ng/ml and that B12 can also be a vital component.
By chance I had my vitamin D level checked a few months ago. It was at 34 nmol/L**. Not horribly low by conventional UK standards but lower than it really should be, much lower than the level recommended by Gominak and also much lower than the level I was at in October 2011, which was 64 nmol/L.
Not knowing that I had been supplementing D3 at between 2,000 and 5,000 IU per day for a period, the doctor told me in November 2011 that my D was acceptable. When I told her the level I had been supplementing at, she conceded that I may want to supplement over the winter months but she really down played it. So I've taken very little in the past 4 years, hence my now depleted level.
Even though my levels 4 years ago were well below what Gominak would recommend, I'm wondering if it is the declining level that is responsible for B12 becoming ineffective. I'm going to keep supplementing with D3 at 10,000 IU per day and will take 1mg methylB12 once per week and hope that some at some point I'll hit an adequate level.
* From what I can gather this is a slightly unusual reaction at Phoenix Rising. It seems to make most folk here agitated or anxious but there are a few others who, like me, report sleepiness.
** to convert nmol/l of vitamin D to ng/ml, use the ratio 2.5:1 (i.e. 1.0 nmol/L of B12 = 0.4 ng/mL)
Hence 34 nmol/l is about 14 ng/ml
64 nmol/l is about 25 ng/ml
Recommended levels of vitamin D
You can look all over the web and you will find vastly different levels for good health recommended by different countries - and within those countries by different societies and agencies. It's very confusing!
For example, Wiki references an Australian study's recommendations:
- Insufficient 50-100 nmol/L (20-40 ng/mL)
- Mild 25–50 nmol/L (10–20 ng/mL)
- Moderate 12.5–25.0 nmol/L (5-10 ng/mL)
- Severe < 12.5 nmol/L (< 5 ng/mL)
My recent UK lab states:
- Insufficient 25–50 nmol/L (10–20 ng/mL)
- Deficient <25 nmol/L (<10 ng/mL)