How quickly should Vitamin D supplements start brightening the spirits? September 20, 2011 Subscribe People who take Vitamin D to stave off SAD-type gloom: please give me your anecdotes. In particular, how long does it take to start working? Extended explanation, to satisfy the curiosity of people who like extended explanations: This year, after a gloriously bright early spring, we had four overcast, rainy months instead of a summer. I've hardly set foot outside in months: throughout July and August especially, I'd open the door and the heavens would open, or the sky would fill with #!@#$! Now it's definitely autumn, with cold winds and rain and yet more grey skies. My mood is strongly affected by daily variations in the weather: bright sunshine cheers me up, and grey gloom casts me down, even if I go out in it. So I've had a fairly awful summer - and as I need to find a new job and arrange an international move, I've got plenty of real problems to be stressed out about at the moment.
I can't really afford to have the weather dampening my spirits further. While searching AskMe for advice on lightboxes, I was interested to find testimonials in various threads to the efficacy of high-dose Vitamin D supplements: for instance, in this thread and this one. Considering how little exposure I've had to sunlight in the last few months (not only have I been indoors most of the time, but there've been very few days warm enough for short sleeves), I probably am vitamin-D-deficient; and vitamin supplements are a much cheaper thing to try than a €150+ energy lamp. In this country, the RDA of Vitamin D turns out to be 5 micrograms, or 200 IU. The only pure Vitamin D supplements I can find in the shops are aimed at toddlers, and consist of little sugar tablets containing 5 micrograms of D3. It's not really a blood-test-on-demand kind of health system here, so I can't easily get my baseline levels checked or get prescribed high-dose tablets; it's the kiddy vitamins or nothing.
So, I tried taking three of those a day (600 IU) for a week or so. That didn't seem to be helping, so I upped the dose to five a day, which I've been doing for a couple of days now. No noticeable improvement yet. Should there be, or is it too soon? In any case, I'm going to try going up to 2000 IU before I give up on this, even though I'll end up rattling. Should I do that tomorrow, or should I give the 1000 IU dose a bit more of a chance? And how long should I stick with the higher dose before giving up and fleeing south for a holiday in the sun? (Why yes, I *am* a pessimist. But I could be a happier, more human-feeling pessimist than I am right now, if the sun would only shine...)Vitamin D deficiencies lead to sleep disorders. And to correct vitamin D-related sleep disorders, you have to be careful about the amount of vitamin D you take and when you take it.Take 1000 IUs of Vitamin D-3 per 25 pounds of body weight, but not more than 10,000 IU’s.Get a blood test to make sure this amount of vitamin D is sufficient for you.
Just as too little vitamin D is bad, so is too much.Take it in the morning. Vitamin D temporarily pauses the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, so don’t take it at night.Sufficient vitamin D can also help reduce pain and control inflammation, among an assortment of other health benefits.Although subtle, more than half of the world population is vitamin D deficient! This is a big problem because sleep disorders are an epidemic due to vitamin D deficiency. (2) This hurts the amount of sleep you get, the quality of your sleep, and your mood upon waking up.We have this deficiency because of the way we live. We work inside, wear clothes, and use sunscreen. These are all realities of modern life, and they all take away from our vitamin D synthesis.This is important to note, because you do not soak up D from the sun, per se. Rather, the interaction with UVB light and a cholesterol derivative in the skin causes D to be synthesized in the body.While many of us wish we could quit our jobs and move to the Bahamas to soak in the rays we need, that is not realistic for most.
As biohackers, it is our job to find a solution.Eating foods rich in vitamin D, and supplementing with D3 is a necessary part of life to maintain adequate D levels. D3 supplements can be found here.However, simply taking a ton of vitamin D is not the complete answer in the long run for preventing vitamin D deficiency. Too much or too little can have side effects, including reducing the quality of your sleep. The amount of International Units (IU) you take and time of day are important aspects in upgrading the amount and quality of your sleep.According to the Vitamin D Council, 1000 IU’s per 25lbs are recommended each day, although using a blood test is the best way to know your ideal dose. A healthy human body utilizes about 3000-5000 IU of vitamin D per day. These amounts are adjusted according to your age, weight, absorption, skin color and normal sun exposure. So when you are outside with adequate sun exposure, use no sunscreen but put on a shirt or a hat if you start to get burned, and leave the Vitamin D supplements at home.
More is not always better.Too much vitamin D can cause headaches and inflammation in the body. The US Government’s upper intake level (UL) for vitamin D is set at 4,000 IU per day. Other experts disagree, the current consensus states it should be 10,000 IU. (7,8,9) This is the amount your skin would naturally produce from maximum exposure from the sun. (10) An even better way to figure out what your optimal vitamin D levels are, is through testing your body’s responses.As more research is being done on D, we are just beginning to find out the importance of the dosage of vitamin D. Additionally with the amount you take, the time you take vitamin D is a crucial factor in upgrading your sleep.Are You Taking Vitamin D at the Right Time?Vitamin D is inversely related to melatonin, your sleep hormone, so it makes sense that taking it at night disrupts sleep. I’ve noticed this effect personally. For this reason, there is no reason to take vitamin D at night.An n=1 experiment done by gwern.net also concludes that taking vitamin D in the morning is best.
Using a ZEO, his morning dose of D increased REM, deep sleep, and number of hours increased. He looked at taking the same dosage at night, and his sleep quality plummeted. My biohacking experiments have similar results. When I’ve taken D in the morning I had my usual great sleep. When I’ve taken D at night, I had a restless night.In our busy worlds, healthy sleep is gold. If we do not receive the right amounts of vitamin D, sleep suffers. If you live a stressful life, sleep is even more important.There are other reasons to take it too. In a study with chronic pain patients, vitamin D helped reduce pain, improve quality of life, and increase sleep.(4) Having adequate levels of D may protect against cancer, control inflammation, heart disease, poor mood, and may help regulate the immune system. Most people are vitamin D deficient, and do not know how it can help improve their lives.If you are unsure of where to start, there are a few options. You might go to your doctor and find out where your vitamin D levels are right now.
Better yet, use WellnessFX for testing and advice. You can search online for other self testing labs.If your level is below 30 ng/ml then you are vitamin D deficient. Increasing intake will help sleep and other health parameters, including bone health and decreased depression.Getting a better night’s rest is an upgraded away.What are some of the ways that you hack your sleep? Do you have a vitamin D story? Share it in the comments!Click to read the complete list of references.Prentice, A. Vitamin D deficiency: a global perspective. Nutr Rev. 2008 Oct; 66 (10 Suppl 2): S153-64.Gominak SC, Stumpf WE. The world epidemic of sleep disorders is linked to vitamin D deficiency. Epub 2012 May 13. PubMed PMID: 22583560.Relationships among dietary nutrients and subjective sleep, objective sleep, and napping in women. IS – 2.SP – 180 184 2010/2// Grandner, Michael A. Kripke, Daniel F. Naidoo, Nirinjini Langer, Robert D. 1389-9457 doi: 0.1016/j.sleep.2009.07.014Huang W, Shah S, Long Q, Crankshaw AK, Tangpricha V. Improvement of Pain, Sleep, and Quality of Life in Chronic Pain Patients With Vitamin D Supplementation.