Seth's Blog

David Cramer left the following comment here:

Since you started posting these, I’ve been taking D3 in the mornings and notice that I wake up much more easily. I started with just 400 IU, then increased it to 800 IU. One day I took 1200 IU and woke up at 4:00 AM the next day. I’ve gone back to 800 IU since 4:00 AM seems a bit early. For the past week, I’ve also been giving one of my daughters (11 years old) 400 IU each morning, and she seems easier to wake up in the morning (normally it’s quite difficult.

I asked him for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I’m in my 40s and live in Austin, Texas and have two daughters. I first encountered your work when I read about the SLD in Levitt and Dubner’s blog. I read the pdf of your papers linked from that blog post and tried the SLD with sugar water. At the time, I was at the high end of my ideal weight, but was not motivated by weight as much as curiosity. I found the irony and absurdity of the SLD appealing. I also liked the idea that it could be tested easily and cheaply. I went from ~170 to ~145 lb in couple of months, but really only did SLD for ~3 weeks. I now occasionally have a nose clipped green smoothie in the morning.

How long have you been taking D3 in the morning? What time do you take it?

I started a couple of weeks ago after you started blogging about it. I take it around 7:00 AM. That would normally be about an hours after I wake up.

The most obvious change since you started taking it is that you wake up more easily? How soon did this start after you started the D3?

Yes, that’s the change I notice. It may be improving my sleep quality, but that’s very subjective and not something I track closely anyway. The effect started almost immediately.

Could you describe (a) how easy it was to wake up in the month before you started the D3 and (b) how easy it was to wake up after you started the D3?

I would often set three alarms on my cell phone and return to bed formore sleep after dismissing the first two. After D3, I usually wake up before my alarm and don’t feel the need to go back to sleep (e.g. after going to the bathroom). Post-D3, when I wake up, I’m awake. Previously, I was still very drowsy for some time, even after getting up.

What time do you usually wake up? get out of bed? do you use an alarm clock to wake yourself in the morning?

Usually 6 or 6:30. Occasionally a little earlier if I have an early meeting at work.

Did D3 have any effect on how easily you fall asleep in the evening? On how often you wake up in the middle of the night?

I haven’t noticed any difference in falling asleep. I don’t typically wake up in the middle of the night.

How much sunlight do you get on a typical morning?

Although I live in Texas, I doubt I get much in the morning this time of year. I do bike to work a couple of times a week, but my arms and legs would be covered. I might even wear gloves if it’s cold. I work inside in an office during the day.

What brand of D3 do you use? what form (e.g., gelcap)?

NOW gelcaps.

How can you tell your daughter “seems to find it easier to wake up in the morning”?

She’s a sound sleeper. Normally it requires repeated reminders and threats to get her up. Even after you get her out of bed, she’ll fall back asleep on the couch. With 400 IU, I’m noticing less of that. I plan to up to 800 IU this week to see if there’s a difference.

Chris Cappadocia recently commented here:

After the morning D3 entries started to appear here sometime before Christmas, I switched to taking my D3 first thing in the morning too (between 4-7000 IU) and so far I’ve noticed significantly increased feelings of sleepiness at bedtime, with moderate improvement falling asleep, reduced wakings throughout the night, and much better ability to sleep in.

I asked him for details: (more…)

In an earlier post, Alexandra Carmichael of CureTogether noted that 4000 IU/day Vitamin D3 gave her better results than 2000 IU/day. Her mood was better and her sleep was better. But she’d only taken the larger dose once.

She recently sent me an update:

Since I last wrote to you [8 days earlier], I’ve been taking 4000-6000 IU Vitamin D3, and I can report that it’s NOT having a positive effect on my sleep, but it is balancing my mood significantly, helping me to handle normally overwhelming situations with much more ease, and avoiding mood extremes. This is a wonderful thing!

Anyway, just wanted to let you know I don’t fit the sleep-improvement set — I still wake up super easily in the night. Falling asleep is easy, but I attribute that to the blue blocker glasses. Also, 4000 IU is much better at balancing my mood than 2000 IU (no noticeable effect) or 6000 IU (feelings of intensity or overwhelm increase).

Greg Harrington left a comment on an earlier post:

I have had very similar results [fall asleep more easily] from first-thing in morning D3.(NOTE: I have great flexibility in my schedule — I can sleep/awake whenever I want — so I have been most focused on “restful” sleeping.) Differences: (a) My pre-D3 issue was restless sleep (waking up frequently), not failure to fall asleep. (b) The effect of sleeping all the way through the night was definitely immediate–very first night. (c) Also, most days I also wake up feeling more “rejuvenated”. This is not 100% though.

I asked him for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I’ve lived Austin,TX since 07/2011. Kansas City, MO before that. I’m a software programmer. 6′ 3″. 210 lbs. (White male, mostly German, but completely European descent.)

How did you want to improve your sleep?

I want to sleep through the night without waking up 3-6 times in a 6-9 hour sleep. This problem has lasted for 2-3 years. It sort of crept up on me. I go to sleep between midnight and 2 am.

How much D3 do you take? At what time?

I take 50,000 IU between 8 and 9 am. If I forget or wake up later, I don’t take it. This is the product I take: Bio-Tech D3 in 50,000 IU capsules.

Why 50k? It was available on Amazon, and I calculated that to be what you’d get from 75-90 minutes of full-body sunlight. Thinking about Paleo lifestyle…that seemed reasonable. This is a LOT more than most SE people are taking but I wanted to maximize the effect!

Any effects of D3 on something other than sleep?

What happened when you started taking D3 in the morning?

A reader named Murray Love made a comment about Vitamin D3 and sleep that at least sounds negative:

As a counterpoint [to this post], I’ve been taking 4-5,000 IU of D3 for a couple of months now, and while it might be making me feel better in other ways (more vital, upbeat, and energetic), it has coincided with a stretch of poor sleep. I have what they (hilariously) call “terminal insomnia” — that is, I usually have no trouble at all falling asleep, but I wake regularly at night and am permanently awake very early, often from 4:30am onwards. This has been a periodic problem for a few years now, though this stretch is notably tolerable, for some reason.

I asked for details: (more…)

A reader named Tim G commented:

Blood tests last year [2011] showed I had low Vitamin D levels so I was put on a 50,000 IU once/week regimen for 3 months using a prescription D2 (ergocalciferol). A recheck after 3 months showed my level had hardly changed. A search of PubMed showed conflicting views on using the D2 form. So for the next 3 months I used ProHealth D3 Extreme 50,000 IU (via Amazon.com) instead of another D2 scrip my doc had given me. I always took the D2 or D3 in the morning (just lucky happenstance.)

The second recheck, after the second 3 mo., showed my Vitamin D level was normal. I hadn’t put it all together until seeing this post, but when using the D3 I had the same effect [as what is described in this post] — when I got tired, I got *really* tired right at bedtime, and slept like a rock.

Even though it has been less than a month since stopping the weekly dose, I have noticed my sleep degrading somewhat, and lately not even being tired when I should.

I asked for details: (more…)

Jenny West, the Englishwoman who discovered independently the value of taking Vitamin D3 in the morning, wrote again:

Since reading some of the other D3 stories, I increased my D3 [morning] dosage to 5000 IU/day [from 3000 IU/day] two days ago.

1. I immediately slept even better – no longer being aware of mid-sleep turning-over.

2. I’ve had a large boost of energy and the clarity of thought that both Robin Barooah and Alexandra Carmichael mentioned.

3. A year-long injury – specifically a dislocated coccyx – has suddenly taken a step forward, and I found myself running for the  Tube last night – something I can’t remember when I last did it. Is this a direct effect of the D3, or an indirect one resulting from much better sleep?

This agrees with what both Alexandra and I experienced: a dose of 4000 IU worked much better than a dose of 2000 IU.

• Independent discovery of nose-clipping? Nasal soft strips reduce appetite, according to an infomercial.
• Does it matter how you take Vitamin D? A little bit of research.
• Hypercalcemia (too much calcium in the blood) after patient takes 5500 IU/day Vitamin D3 plus 2000 mg/day calcium.
• Fat Chef. A new TV show on the Food Network. Chefs try to lose weight.
• Kickstarter project: Restaurant guide to San Francisco on a map folded in a new way.
• The acne-diet connection. Dermatologists — the supposed experts — continue to say they aren’t connected.

Thanks to Anne Weiss, Phil Alexander and Dave Lull.

Alex Chernavsky, who has used the Shangri-La Diet successfully for two years, recently commented as follows (emphasis added):

For what it’s worth, I’ve taken Vitamin D at different times of the day, and I’ve never noticed any effect on my sleep. Of course, my sleep is already pretty good, in the sense that I fall asleep quickly and don’t usually wake up during the night. (My sleep is not good in the sense that I don’t get enough of it.)

By email, I learned that Alex is now taking Vitamin D3 — this particular product, which is vegan (“plant-source”) — at 5000 IU every other day. On weekdays, he takes it at about 8:00 am, on weekends, 9:30-10:00 am.

What might explain Alex’s failure to notice better sleep?

1. Not enough D3. I found that 2000 IU/day had no noticeable effect, whereas 4000 IU/day did produce noticeable benefit. Alex is getting 2500 IU/day — or less, if he takes it too late on the weekends.

2. His source of D3.

3. Individual differences large enough to matter. If you do sensitive psychology experiments, you will learn there are individual differences in everything.

4. Ceiling effect. Alex’s sleep is too good to notice improvement.

Those are the just the obvious possibilities.

I have heard many stories about Vitamin D3 and sleep, often in the comments section of this blog. From now on I am going to number them. (I retitled earlier posts.)

Elizabeth Funderburk emailed me:

I’ve always suffered, rather lightly I guess, from SAD in the winter.  In 2010 I started eating primal, which I thought would help – it helped in many ways but I still got gloomier all winter and didn’t even realize it til that first warm sunny spring day when I “woke up.” Your November post about D3 reminded me that I wanted to try it this winter, so I got a bottle and started taking it in the morning. I forgot a few times and took it in the midday or afternoon, and yes, I felt noticeably more spazzy and awake those evenings. Now, if I forget, I just skip it if I remember later than 10 am. I do think I sleep better. I take 4000-6000 IU daily.

I asked her for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I live in Reno, NV, USA, and I’m 34.  I do home renovations.

What brand?

Kirkland D3 2000 IU gelcaps. The first bottle I got was from Walgreen’s, so I guess it was Nature’s Bounty gelcaps. Both seem to work equally well. I have not tried capsules. I take the D3 while I’m waiting for my coffee, usually 6 or 7 am.

How has your sleep improved? (more…)