Talking in my sleep

[LionKing_]

What can I do to combat sleep talking at night

[LionKing_]

The people next door can hear it, so I want to be as silent as possible and stop this haha

[kaliska0]

Sometimes the body just doesn't turn off everything it is supposed to when you sleep. There is no proven way to correct that and usually no doctor attempts to unless it is a situation of dangerous sleep walking. Even then physical barriers like making doors harder to open is easier than any medical correction.

Unless there is an actual problem with the quality of your sleep there isn't really anything that can fix it. Problem is even if it is a sleep quality issue there is no good, simple way to treat these problems. Prescription meds have side effects, often quit working after a few months to a few years, and while they often help you fall asleep may worsen sleep quality or cause talking in your sleep and sleep walking for some people. Non-prescription supplements are completely random if they work for a given person and what the result is.

The easiest 2 supplements that are most likely to have any positive impact with minimal negatives are probably magnesium glycinate and valerian root. But if you wake up feeling rested that's likely not the issue. You are probably better off playing a white noise machine at a volume that at least makes your words less noticeable and not understandable but not loud enough to be bothersome or to put up some sound proofing panels on the wall.

[Metabobbly in reply to kaliska0]

I would disagree with the idea that supplements are random in their effects. If people are deficient in something then a supplement may help. However, it will vary from person to person as to whether they are deficient in anything.

I am also not sure that Glycine (in Mg glycinate) is most likely to help. It could assist in creating Creatine which has a combination of effects depending on how much Arginine someone has in their diet. I tend to prefer Mg Threonate for the Magnesium and then testing Glycine as itself is probably best.

[kaliska0 in reply to Metabobbly]

You can't tell who is "deficient" though. Unless we get into true deficiencies recognized as causing obvious health issues and blood tests to check for them. Some people are merely "not ideal" of levels for them and would not test as deficient but get benefits from supplementing. Some things we don't have good tests for and what methods are used are not recognized by some medical systems. You can't tell who those people with not ideal levels or aren't using nutrients fully are without spending $1,000s on tests of how you are processing a wide range of nutrients. Been there, done that. Even found a few clear deficiencies that regular doctors weren't bothering to check for despite not being uncommon tests (vit d, b12, folate).

You also do have some people who are not low in something but still respond positively to it. Most people taking gaba enhancing psychiatric meds like benzos are probably not actually low in gaba. It's just an easy way to counter their anxiety problems. Part of why it doesn't work long term is the body finds it's getting an excess of gaba so it dulls it's reaction to it as well as reducing it's own production. Very few people using grams worth of glycine for sleep benefits need that much glycine to keep their body healthy but they need that much to force the reactions that triggers and improves sleep. Such things are more a counter to the actual cause rather than a correction to it because we don't know the cause or we are incapable of treating the cause. That would be the case with sleep talking, sleep walking, sleep paralysis while awake, micro awakenings during rem, etc.....

You aren't treating a deficiency when you attempt to reduce symptoms of most sleep and psychiatric disorders and you can't predict how some people will react to the excess. I actually can't take glycine or lysine bound supplements or medications. It causes shallow sleep, an overall sick feeling, and horrible brain fog and fatigue for sometimes days afterward. I split my magnesium dose into mag oxide at night and mag threonate in the morning instead.

My goal for the op's particular problem was to think of things that would work to calm the nervous system and muscle signals while deepening sleep to reduce the odds of muscle movement rather than concentrating on neurological function. The ability to alter the brain with supplements is probably too limited to go that route for this problem. Glycine, magnesium, and gaba from valerian root is the simplest, and safest supplement combo I could come up with for that and it has the most consistent results according to years of talking to people on forums and reading studies. Taking things that improve brain function during the day could potentially have benefits but with no other symptoms related to concentration, memory, etc.... I would recommend more research into any connection with parasomnia disorders first.

Threonate has a much more limited scope of benefits than glycine and has very limited studies linking it to improved sleep. It shows a lot of benefits for cognitive decline due to aging or neurological disorders. However, it's effects in studies on younger adults with no complaints of their ability to concentrate, problem solve, and other overall cognitive function is rather minimal. Many people take it because it is stimulating to brain activity and use it during the day due to not getting that sluggish feeling large does of magnesium can give. Long term it's effects on brain health may improve anxiety symptoms or problems regulating emotions that can result from many psychiatric and neurological conditions. It could potentially improve minor damage or changes to the brain that are resulting in sleep disorders over the longer term.

One problem in using it as your magnesium source for sleep disorders is some find it can increase problems of racing thoughts or difficulty letting things go when taken at night. Particularly in cases of anxiety, stress, or adhd. If we were talking about a situation with a decline in cognitive function or lack of motivation during the day threonate might be the better recommendation but I would suggest testing it during the day at first.

For a parasomnia disorder like this threonate does not really show much potential for treating the issue. It's improvements are mostly to brain tissue health and function. Threonate may even have some potential for increasing rem (good for some people) and both brain and nervous system activity during sleep causing lighter sleep. All of those risk an increase in sleep talking or movement instead of improvement.

Both valerian root and glycine along with magnesium is more likely to enhance the body's tendency to shut down muscle control, act as a mild muscle relaxant, reduce brain activity, and calm the nervous system. It also may result in more deep sleep (you only react in sleep during rem or light stages of sleep) or improve rem so it doesn't get moments of light sleep in the middle allowing for movement, which is a disorder of rem sleep that can occur sometimes. As a result one or both supplements might be just enough extra needed to stop the ability to move and speak out loud during sleep. Combining glycine and magnesium during the night to get the dual effect would be ideal instead of splitting them.

Glycine with magnesium tends to set off a cascade of events in the body that trigger and improve sleep quality. It's direct effects signal sleep to other systems so they react as well. It has a very wide range of benefits that can help with sleep when you don't know the contributing causes. It also has that greater effect on the nervous system and muscles than threonate would.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

From that study: "Glycine has long been known as an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brainstem and spinal cord (Curtis et al, 1968; Werman et al, 1968). In these areas, the activation of glycinergic premotoneurons triggers muscle atonia during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep"

Muscle atonia is a weakening of muscle strength or response and required during rem to not act out your dreams.

psychologytoday.com/us/blog...

zrtlab.com/blog/archive/gly...

[Metabobbly in reply to kaliska0]

The reason I am experimenting with threonate at the moment is that it is reported to be better at getting through the BBB.

cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0...

My current objective is to increase my measured sleep to above 6 hours and I am tending to have a sleep maintenance problem after 5 hours, but before 6.

It appears that I may be getting a valerian rebound problem at that stage.

[Metabobbly in reply to kaliska0]

My experience with threonate is that you are probably right. It is probably the case that the threonic acid gives some extra energy to the mitochondria. That may be shortening the sleep period, but resulting in less fatigue. It seems to act in a similar manner to menaquinone-7, but perhaps not as forcefully.

[stratford_58]

Dear LionKing some basic questions but have you seen a physician? Have you discussed this and any other sleep problem you may have. If you have read my profile you will see I have some very severe sleep problems but they are all so much better since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. However before that I was diagnosed with Parasomnia and prescribed Melatonin (Circadin) which does help in the initial stages of sleep. Seeing a Sleep Specialist really helped me to begin to understand sleep hygiene. You really need to start a conversation with your Physician if you haven’t already and get referred to a specialist sleep clinic. If you are disturbing your neighbours your sleep talking sounds severe. Good luck and I hope to hear how you get on. Oh yes. One thing my partner did was to video me as in the morning I would have no recollection of my sleep behaviour. However, watching it back can be very distressing.

[LionKing_ in reply to stratford_58]

Thank you. I have discussed this with my GP and he prescribed me with medicine to countermeasure this issue. It enables me to go to deep sleep and stop sleep talking and interrupted sleep

[stratford_58 in reply to LionKing_]

Interested to know what your GP prescribed? Good to know all is okay now.

[LionKing_ in reply to stratford_58]

Promethazine hydrochloride, have you heard of it ?