How the brain's activity, energy use and blood flow change as people fall asleep

My psych pointed out that yawning is a tension release mechanism, so it’s likely just punting a bunch of cortisol from your nervous system

Interesting study, but it mostly reinforces what we already know about sleep mechanics.

Of particular importance is how sensory regions remain metabolically active while higher-order regions downshift during NREM sleep. That suggests the benefit of sleep depends less on how long we sleep and more on the specific activation and de-activation of networks during sleep.

I work in neurotech/sleeptech as the founder of https://affectablesleep.com. Our stimulation triggers sensory pathways during sleep to enhance the brain’s restorative function without changing sleep time.

This systematic review [1] covers non‐invasive approaches to enhancing slow‐wave activity in sleep and outlines their physiology and effects. This focused paper [2] explores the neurophysiology of closed‐loop auditory stimulation during sleep.

Though the title of the post suggests the study looks at falling asleep, the study is really focused on what happens during NREM sleep, which has been our focus for the last few years.

Of particular interest to me right now are the processes of waking. Research suggests that different neural networks come online in a specific sequence, and when that sequence is disrupted, we experience sleep inertia or the sense of not being fully restored.

[1]https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101438 [2]https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.16132

I have a routine and the crazy part is that it is 100% effective, in that I can be restless, consciously start the routine, and 100% of the time I fall asleep. It is the oddest feeling to begin the routine, which requires conscious mental effort, and suddenly you can't remember anything because you fell asleep. I can only ever recall doing it at times when my mind is racing, so I can't say how well it works when calm as I forget to do the routine when calm.

The routine is basically a game to see if you can "flow" between mental images by envisioning scenes in your mind and then allowing some object in the scene to "pull" you into a different scene. For example, envision the power cable of your lamp, you fly along the power cable up to the light bulb, and then you envision the bulb glass exploding into a million pieces, which becomes snow falling on a ski lodge, you see the warm glow of fire in the fireplace, and a fireball blasts out the chimney into the sky, somehow becomes a perfect flaming sphere, that becomes a meatball and falls into a plate of spaghetti, you are eating it down, you see yourself at a ratty diner table, under the table you see your shoes, and then your shoes are running through rain puddles, you zoom into a single droplet which is actually a massive aquarium tank, fish are swimming in it except we are in the ocean, not a tank, and the fish is so colorful but those colors are actually an explosion of rainbow paint colors dripping down an apartment wall, etc. etc.

It might sound ridiculous when written in words, but that is the gist of it. The game is to lay there and consciously morph and fly between mental images, letting your mind conjure imagery that comes next.

It's crazy because I start doing this with a conscious struggle to envision the next chain-of-events but suddenly my brain catches on and starts unconsciously playing the game and images just kinda flow and BAM asleep.

Exploring other z drugs (Lunesta, sonata), Benzos, thc, cbd, trazodone, Doxipin, belsomra, gabapantin, whisky, Dramamine, and herbal additions to higher dose melatonin (10mg+) and magnesium glycinate/threonate, like ashwaganda, valerian, gaba, passionflower, hops, lemonbalm, California poppy, jujube seed, chamomile/apigenin, myoinositol, taurine, higher dose glycine, theanine, 5htp (be careful), tryptophan (be careful), nighttime vitamin d, anti-hypertensives, arginine, supplemental oxygen, nsaids, red light therapy and placebo effects may be worth trying alone or in various combinations.

Sorry you’re going through this, that sounds brutal. You mentioned an abusive childhood making things worse; if you’re open to sharing, has anything in therapy (trauma-informed work, CBT, EMDR, etc.) actually helped?

Do you have any take on non-med things like mindfulness/yoga nidra or gentle ambient sound at night? I’m on the fence about starting meditation myself and curious what’s been useful, or not, for you.

And if meds are what’s giving you relief right now, I’m glad you’ve found something that helps.