Best Supplements for Improving Sleep

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00:00:02.440 | If for instance, you're somebody who falls asleep just fine,

00:00:06.440 | but wakes up in the middle of the night,

00:00:09.140 | around two or 3 a.m. or any time for that matter,

00:00:11.440 | and has trouble falling back asleep,

00:00:13.680 | there are two categories of supplements

00:00:15.400 | that you might want to consider.

00:00:17.240 | The first is myoinositol,

00:00:19.080 | typically taken as 900 milligrams of myoinositol.

00:00:22.040 | Myoinositol can help shorten the amount of time

00:00:24.280 | that it takes to fall back asleep

00:00:26.280 | if you wake up in the middle of the night.

00:00:28.000 | Myoinositol has other beneficial uses as well

00:00:31.440 | for mood, et cetera.

00:00:32.960 | If you'd like to see many of the different effects

00:00:35.440 | that have been explored in the scientific literature

00:00:37.200 | for myoinositol, you can go to examine.com.

00:00:39.520 | It's an excellent site, not just for inositol,

00:00:42.240 | but for all supplements for that matter.

00:00:44.480 | Talks about the human effect matrix.

00:00:46.540 | That is the different effects

00:00:47.880 | of different supplement compounds

00:00:49.560 | on different aspects of hormone, brain, and body health,

00:00:52.380 | where the evidence is strong, where the evidence is weak,

00:00:54.720 | has links to studies, and so on.

00:00:56.160 | Again, it's examine.com, amazing website, wonderful website.

00:00:59.360 | It's provided such a rich resource for me

00:01:01.480 | and for many, many other people.

00:01:03.400 | Other people who wake up in the middle of the night

00:01:07.320 | will wake up because their dreams are very intense,

00:01:10.560 | or they were having dreams that were so vivid

00:01:13.240 | that suddenly they were jolted from their dreams.

00:01:15.560 | Those people would do well to avoid certain supplements.

00:01:19.440 | So in a moment, I'll talk about the value

00:01:21.360 | of a supplement called theanine for falling asleep.

00:01:24.580 | But theanine, which typically is taken in dosages

00:01:28.080 | anywhere from 100 milligrams to 400 milligrams,

00:01:31.600 | depending on body weight and experience

00:01:34.720 | and what you find to be most effective for you,

00:01:36.900 | minimally effective for you.

00:01:38.280 | Well, theanine can be great for many people,

00:01:40.200 | but for people who have excessively vivid dreams,

00:01:44.000 | those excessively vivid dreams can lead to immediate waking

00:01:47.520 | and sometimes a little bit of anxiety

00:01:49.080 | upon waking in the middle of the night.

00:01:50.800 | So some people who wake up in the middle of the night,

00:01:53.260 | so jolted mentally and physically out of sleep

00:01:57.520 | because of their intense dreams

00:02:00.160 | would do well to avoid theanine supplementation.

00:02:03.680 | I've talked about this a bit before,

00:02:05.200 | but it's something that I think a lot of nighttime,

00:02:08.240 | middle of the night wakers might be familiar with

00:02:10.920 | and would want to take into consideration.

00:02:13.360 | Now, for those of you that are not waking up

00:02:14.920 | in the middle of the night

00:02:15.740 | or not having excessively vivid dreams,

00:02:17.680 | but are having trouble falling asleep,

00:02:19.600 | two supplements in particular have been shown

00:02:22.320 | to be effective for shortening the transition time to sleep

00:02:25.700 | and allowing people to ease into sleep more readily.

00:02:29.300 | And those are magnesium threonate,

00:02:31.460 | which is interchangeable with magnesium bisglycinate.

00:02:35.900 | Magnesium bisglycinate and magnesium threonate

00:02:38.460 | both have transporter systems

00:02:41.260 | that allow them to readily cross the blood-brain barrier

00:02:43.660 | and they lead to a mild form of drowsiness,

00:02:46.180 | mild in the sense that it's not going to prevent you

00:02:48.260 | from operating a motor vehicle

00:02:49.740 | or kind of any conditions under emergency

00:02:52.800 | that might arise in the middle of the night,

00:02:54.400 | or if they did arise during the middle of night,

00:02:55.760 | you'd still be able to function,

00:02:56.820 | so it's not like a sleeping pill.

00:02:58.420 | But people who take those often find

00:03:00.680 | that their transition time into sleep is much faster

00:03:03.160 | and their sleep is also much deeper.

00:03:04.600 | Incidentally, those supplements are also thought

00:03:07.640 | to be useful for cognitive support and neuroprotection,

00:03:12.320 | although there's less data on that.

00:03:14.640 | Okay, so that's for falling asleep, that's one category,

00:03:17.020 | either magnesium, magnesium threonate, or bisglycinate

00:03:19.880 | would be interchangeable

00:03:21.160 | for assisting the transition time into sleep.

00:03:23.440 | And then the other supplement is apigenin, A-P-I-G-E-N-I-N.

00:03:27.720 | Apigenin, which is a derivative of chamomile,

00:03:29.720 | I've talked about this in various podcasts before,

00:03:32.020 | also acts as a bit of a anxiety-lowering compound,

00:03:36.480 | which is essential prior to sleep

00:03:38.020 | for people to essentially turn off their thinking

00:03:40.800 | or to be able to reduce the amount of ruminating

00:03:42.780 | and problem-solving and future anticipation

00:03:44.820 | that they're doing,

00:03:45.660 | which is a requirement for falling asleep.

00:03:47.580 | So what's the rational approach to supplementing

00:03:51.000 | in a way that allows you to fall asleep more quickly

00:03:53.980 | and stay asleep?

00:03:54.820 | Well, would you immediately take magnesium threonate

00:03:58.080 | and apigenin together?

00:03:59.380 | Well, that depends.

00:04:00.220 | If you have the budget

00:04:01.040 | and you just simply want to fall asleep quicker

00:04:02.940 | and you don't care which of those two ingredients

00:04:04.660 | is going to be more effective for you,

00:04:06.300 | well, then you could try one,

00:04:07.920 | for instance, magnesium threonate,

00:04:09.660 | and try it for perhaps a week

00:04:12.020 | and see how that affects your latency to sleep time,

00:04:14.380 | that is how quickly you fall asleep,

00:04:15.900 | or you could try apigenin in the first week,

00:04:17.820 | or you could combine them both,

00:04:19.340 | or you could try magnesium threonate for a week,

00:04:22.000 | then switch to only apigenin for a week

00:04:24.740 | and evaluate which one works better for you.

00:04:27.300 | If neither works for you,

00:04:28.300 | I do recommend trying the combination together.

00:04:30.740 | Again, this is just the way that any scientist

00:04:33.180 | would design an experiment

00:04:34.400 | to try and understand which variables,

00:04:36.820 | that is, which ingredients are most effective

00:04:40.500 | for the result that you want,

00:04:42.020 | as opposed to just lumping them together and taking them.

00:04:44.660 | That said, a lot of people want excellent sleep so badly

00:04:48.660 | that they just say,

00:04:49.500 | "Okay, I'm just going to take magnesium threonate,

00:04:51.060 | I'm going to take apigenin, I'm going to take theanine.

00:04:53.140 | If my dreams are too vivid

00:04:54.260 | and I'm waking up in the middle of the night

00:04:55.740 | from excessively vivid dreams, I'll drop the theanine."

00:04:58.660 | And many people actually derive great benefit

00:05:00.880 | from that approach.

00:05:01.940 | But because today we're talking

00:05:03.020 | about the most rational, cost-effective,

00:05:04.620 | and biologically effective approach to supplementation,

00:05:07.460 | if you're not sleeping as well as you would like to,

00:05:10.540 | or if you want to explore what sleeping

00:05:12.660 | even more deeply might do for your mental health,

00:05:16.220 | physical health, and performance,

00:05:17.620 | well, then it makes sense to think about

00:05:20.340 | the various supplements for falling asleep

00:05:22.740 | versus remaining asleep,

00:05:24.340 | what to include, what not to include,

00:05:26.180 | and to do that systematically.

00:05:27.540 | And again, I think one week's time of taking something,

00:05:30.420 | provided it doesn't induce any negative effects, right?

00:05:34.860 | If something induces a negative effect,

00:05:36.660 | I recommend ceasing taking it immediately.

00:05:39.060 | But if something does not produce any negative effects,

00:05:41.580 | then I think you want to try a single ingredient formulation

00:05:44.340 | for about a week while not varying anything else,

00:05:47.420 | not changing anything else in your overall protocols

00:05:51.100 | of nutrition or supplementation.

00:05:53.220 | I mean, it's impossible to clamp everything perfectly

00:05:55.740 | from week to week,

00:05:56.580 | but don't change anything else dramatically

00:05:58.740 | and just add that supplement for a given week,

00:06:01.460 | see how it benefits your sleep.

00:06:03.500 | Maybe add in a second supplement if you like,

00:06:05.980 | or rather swap and try a different supplement for a week

00:06:09.540 | and then see what works best

00:06:11.220 | and see if the combination works even better.

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Best Supplements for Improving Sleep | Dr. Andrew Huberman

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