Seth's Blog

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…)

A woman named Jenny West, who lives in Chiltern Hills (west of London), commented that  she “discovered independently that D3 first thing in the morning works.” I asked her for details:

I (and my family) started to take Vitamin D3 because we are all dyslexic/dyspraxic and had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, a type of depression). Previously we had tried using light boxes (minimal effect), getting out every lunchtime (more useful) and finally 5HTp — which works but is expensive and if you start it once you are in SAD you can end up ‘wired’. Our SAD symptoms were mainly sleepiness and lack of energy (= hibernation), and brain fog (= difficulty concentrating).

We started taking D3 (2000 IU, Solgar) in gelcaps. That first winter, for the first time ever, no one had any seasonal affective disorder. I had had it since the age of 21, my youngest child when only 4 yrs old, and my other two children by the time they were 18 yrs old. At this point, we were taking the D3 at random times, commonly lunchtime or later, often when everyone was together and the vitamin pot was handed around!

This autumn, all the youngsters had moved out. I found I was forgetting the D3, so I moved it to the bathroom and started taking it first thing in the morning (8-9 am). Then in September, I started taking 3000 IU (instead of 2000 IU). We’d been in Greece and had come back to a gloomy autumn and I wanted to make sure SAD didn’t kick in. In a month I started sleeping through the night most nights.

Before I started taking D3 first thing in the morning, I only slept through 10% of my nights, and had been doing so for at least 15 years. I would wake at 3-4 am, but didn’t get up unless I had been awake for more than 3/4 hr. Then I would be awake until 6 am. Now I sleep without a break (other than turning over) from midnight to 8 am. I sleep like this 95% of my nights, and that includes the odd night when I took the D3 much later in the morning because I had slept in – and consequently woke the following night.

As a coeliac, I take the supplements many coeliacs take – probiotics, minerals, vitamins – but none of these affected my sleep either way. So it really looks as if it is the timing plus the correct dose of D3.

BTW the extra daytime energy is fantastic.

She is 5 feet 4 inches, 64 kg. Notice that 2000 IU first thing in the morning did not improve her sleep but 3000 IU first thing in the morning did. I had a similar experience: 2000 IU had no clear effect  but 4000 IU did.

I know Robin Barooah from Quantified Self meetups. When I learned he had started taking Vitamin D3 early in the morning, I asked him what happened:

I’ve been taking it since December 20. I initially thought of trying it immediately on my return from London because I thought that it might help to reduce jet lag, given its apparent coupling with the circadian rhythm.

It didn’t seem to have a dramatic effect on my jet lag – which was as bad as I usually experience it for about the same number of days (around 3-4). However it had a very pronounced effect on my general energy levels. At first I was almost hyperactive, yet my concentration was good. I was using 5000 IU per day, at 7:30 am. The hyperactive feeling subsided but the dramatic improvement of my energy levels (and increased concentration) continued until I decided to reduce the dose to 2000 or 3000 IU per day [from 5000 IU/day]. My mood has improved too, although I think indirectly though feeling more capable and productive.

I decided to reduce the dose because I was concerned that my sleep wasn’t noticeably better than before taking the D3, and might have been worse.   Reducing the dose caused a huge reduction in my energy levels and concentration, and no improvement in sleep. After a week of that I went back to the 5000 IU dose, and again am very happy with the effects. The improvement in sustained concentration is so dramatic that it’s disturbing to think of how much this could have changed my life had I been using it for years (assuming the effect lasts).

It’s possible that my sleep quality has improved in some way that isn’t reflected in my subjective experience of sleeping, and this has caused the improved energy and concentration. I am sleeping about the same length of time, and waking up in the night just as often and feeling about as rested as before I started (which is not quite as rested as I’d like to feel, despite having a lot of energy). I am not taking a multivitamin, so it’s also possible that I’m not getting all of the possible benefit.

Without doubt, this is one of the most effective things I’ve ever tried.

Emphasis added. He takes Now Foods Vitamin D3 (easy to buy on Amazon), the 5000 IU and 1000 IU softgels. He also said:

I used to get quite severe tiredness (enough to need to lie down) at numerous times during the day. Now I seem to get tired just a little in the afternoon, and then progressively so into the evening. There’s a very distinct slowdown in my energy that happens very obviously around 5pm, which is coincidentally around dusk here at the moment.

I have noticed something similar. Before Vitamin D3 early in the morning, I used to get really tired around 10 am. Enough to make me lie down. This happened on more than half of all days. Now that I am taking a lot of D3 (8000 or 10000 IU) first thing in the morning (8 or 9 am) it doesn’t happen at all. (I may eventually go down to a lower dose, such as 5000 IU/day.)

On a status update, Alexandra Carmichael (of CureTogether) noted she was taking 4000 IU of Vitamin D3. I asked her for details:

I’ve been taking 2000 IU of D3 every morning for many months, but after hearing about your Meetup talk topic from Gary/Ernesto ["Vitamin D3 and Sleep"] and talking to [redacted] about his experience with it, I decided to switch to 4000 IU, starting yesterday. I take it between 6 and 7 am, with my other morning supplements/meds.

Yesterday I noticed an unusual sense of “clear and smooth” mood for much of the day, which is very odd for me. The day after a meetup, I usually experience intensely fluctuating moods (I’ve been tracking hourly moods, and on my worst days, it’s a 3-hour cycle between peaks, like a super rapid cycling, ultradian bipolar – my therapist suggested this term when I showed him my mood tracking data.)

I also slept unusually well – I’ve been having a good deal of trouble sleeping lately, both falling asleep and night waking. Last night I slept a solid 8 hours!!!

That’s a very small sample (one day) of what happens with 4000 IU. However, Alexandra’s experience is similar to mine. I found that 2000 IU of D3 had no clear effect compared to nothing. However, the very first night after I upped the dose to 4000 IU (from 2000 IU) my sleep was noticeably better.

Alex is using Nature’s Bounty 2000 IU Vitamin D3 gelcaps.

I have been getting good sleep improvement from Vitamin D3 (early in the morning) using tablets. However, Tara Grant and Paul have gotten good results with gelcaps. Apparently both formulations work. Which is better?

This story, from a woman I’ll call JMW, suggests gelcaps are better:

Sorting out all the nutrition for [celiac disease], about 3 years ago, [my two boys and I] started taking D3 – 2000 IU of Solgar in capsule form. That first winter, NO ONE had seasonal affective disorder [= depression]. I had had it since I was 21, can’t remember further back than that, the youngest had had it since he was 4 yrs old, can’t remember the others.

We unintentionally proved it needs to be in capsules (i.e. oil) rather than tablets when I mistakenly repeat-ordered with tablets, and everyone got worse until I got the capsules again.