Problems sleeping due to excess energy

[sleeper]

You may want to be careful with melatonin- it's extracted from animal brains (beware of the prions) so it's the only supplement that I would advise to make sure it's synthetic. Another thing about it is that if you start using it routinely your body will stop making it's own, so you want to only use it when you absolutely have to, like to reset your circadian clock, for example.

good tip!

[newfreedom]

You may want to be careful with melatonin- it's extracted from animal brains (beware of the prions) so it's the only supplement that I would advise to make sure it's synthetic.

Oh No, i didn't know that -YUK
i hope the one i bought is a synthetic one, i will check . . .

Ok, well i wrote to the company that was selling the product i bought, as i couldn't tell from the listed ingredients if it was synthetic or not. They are not calling it synthetic, so it's alittle confusing to me, to be honest, but this is what they said.

We can assure you that there are no animal components in the Melatonin Spray. The Melatonin is manufactured using natural product starting materials. The natural source material of 5-Methoxytryptamine (5-MT), also known as mexamine, is closely related to the neurotransmitters serotonin and melatonin. 5-MT has been shown to occur naturally in the body in low levels.

So i'm not sure if what they are saying is, that the product was started from using animal products, but now doesn't contain any directly ??

From the above reply, I am hoping and assuming that the product i have bought is safe . . .

Back around 1989 when the BSE scare was going on in the UK, I and my family stopped eating beef and all products containing gelatine and have never gone back to eating these, so i was recently rather 'horriffied' to think i might have over-looked this danger in the melatonin product. Although i knew it was a hormone, i just {carelessly} assumed it would not be from animals and that it would have been got / made in a different way. I think also perhaps i was lulled into a 'false sense of security' as well, because the supplement website that i purchased the product from, was one recommended on the website of a very aware and knowledgeable nutritionalist friend of mine.

[CFTraveler]

I took a look at Mexamine.
They are quoting the same article I linked to.
I found out that melatonin is used to make mexamine usually, by taking some stuff off it, so I'd wager that they may be doing the opposite with the mexamin to turn it into melatonin.
But I couldn't find anywhere that explained where they get mexamine in the first place. I wonder if you can get vegan melatonin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-Methoxytryptamine

Any chemists here that know or can find out?

[Floond]

Both Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) and Mexamine (5-methoxytryptamine) can be obtained from animal Pineal glands or made by inorganic total synthesis. Melatonin is basically mexamine with an additional acetyl group, so each can be used as precursor for making the other by acetylation or deacetylation.

Here is a snippet from a patent application concerning total synthesis of melatonin :

1. A total synthesis method for making N-acetyl-5-methoxy tryptamine having a high purity and being easily soluble in water for therapeutic use against acquired immunodeficiency syndromes,comprising the steps of combining potassium phthalimide and dibromopropane to provide 3-bromopropyl-phthalimide,adding acetacetic ester in the presence of anhydrous ethanol dissolved sodium to provide ethyl-2-acetyl-phthalimido-pentanoate and adding diazo-p-anisidine, to provide 2-carboxy-ethyl-3-(2-phthalimido-ethyl)-5-methoxy-indole characterized in that the tabs prepared 2- carboxy-ethyl-3-(2-phthalimiio-ethyl)-5-methoxy-indole is further processed by the further steps of mixing it with 2N NaOH to provide a mixture,refluxing said mixture at 135°C for 2 1/2 hours to provide a full solution,holding stirring and temperature,adding a 20%(v/v) H2SO4 solution and further refluxing for four hours to provide raw 5-methoxytryptamine.
The said raw 5-methoxytryptamine is refluxed for 12-14 hours with hexamethyl-disilazane,under refrigeration and sodium hydroxide protection distilling the solution under normal pressure so as to recover excess HMDS and distilling at a reduced pressure so as to provide a mixture of the mono- and bi-derivatives,hydrolizing the silyl derivative by aqueous methanol so as to provide 5-methoxytryptamine with a purification yield of 80%.
The method further comprises the step of adding to an ice cooled suspension of said pure 5-methoxytryptamine, a cold solution of acetic anhydride in methylene chloride, cooling and stirring for one hour,so as to provide a full solution, and washing with 2N Na2CO3 twice and then with water, drying the organic phase on anhydrous Na2SO4 and evaporating so as to provide a slightly colored high purity N-acetyl-5-methoxy-tryptamine.

@newfreedom
Thanks for your suggestions I'll read up on these herbal supplements, but would prefer to find a solution that didn't involve 'medicines'.

[sleeper]

Thanks for your suggestions I'll read up on these herbal supplements, but would prefer to find a solution that didn't involve 'medicines'.

what is your sleeping area like? what is the temperature in your room (cool/warm)? how much light is in your room at night? are there many electronic devices in your room? have you tried sleeping in other areas of your room/moving your bed? have you tried sleeping on the floor (with several blankets underneath? how quiet is your room at night? do you have pets that sleep with you? do you wake up to an alarm clock?

how is your adrenal health? are you under a lot of stress during the day? do you feel fatigued in the middle of the day? do you feel energized or catch your "second wind" of energy late at night? do you consume much caffeine or energy drinks? when do you eat dinner and what kinds of meal does your dinner consist of?

have you tried expending your energy in other ways before bed?

[Floond]

have you tried expending your energy in other ways before bed?

what is your sleeping area like? what is the temperature in your room (cool/warm)?

I have a small apartment so besides a bathroom and kitchen and an entrance I only have a single room which I use for both sleeping and living.
My bed is next to a window which is slightly open all year round, and I usually open it fully for 10-15 mins. before bed time to cool the room but also to ventilate, so it's cool at bed time.

how much light is in your room at night? are there many electronic devices in your room?

There's no light in the room besides a small red LED from my TV when it's in standby mode. Besides the TV I have my computer and an guitar amplifier but they're (usually) turned off at night.

have you tried sleeping in other areas of your room/moving your bed? have you tried sleeping on the floor (with several blankets underneath?

I sometimes fall asleep on my couch instead of my bed, but the room is rather small and filled with stuff and furniture so moving the bed is not really an option, as I'd have to move everything else as well and it's placed most conveniently as it is now. I have thought about it before though, actually ever since I read Castaneda's books when I was 15 or so, to see if facing north, south, east or west would make any difference.
I'm not to keen on experimenting with sleeping on the floor since I had a bad experience a couple of years ago when the cleansing process was more intensive. I was moving to a new apartment at the time, and was going to spend the night there because I had a party to attend in the city I was moving to the day after, bud hadn't had time to move my bed yet. I remember the night before my intuition told me this would be a problem, but I didn't listen much to it back then and since I had slept on the floor at friends' places many times with no problem I figured it should work just the one night. I had two thin madrases and slept ok as far as I can recall but the morning after I could barely move and had a horrible pain in my back for 3 days, so I prefer a bed these days .

how quiet is your room at night? do you have pets that sleep with you? do you wake up to an alarm clock?

My room is quiet at night apart from the occasional car on the road outside and my cat walking around and chewing dry food. He's usually outside hunting at night if the temperatures aren't too low though.
I use my mobile phone as an alarm clock the days I have to attend something at a specific time.

how is your adrenal health? are you under a lot of stress during the day? do you feel fatigued in the middle of the day? do you feel energized or catch your "second wind" of energy late at night? do you consume much caffeine or energy drinks? when do you eat dinner and what kinds of meal does your dinner consist of?

I don't know how my adrenal health is. I'm not under much stress as I'm unemployed, two friends died recently and untimely though and that has been on my mind a lot but have coped with it now. Yea I do experience a period of fatigue in the middle of the day or in the morning when I'm supposed to wake up instead heh. But I usually don't have time to sleep at those times and also don't want to mess up my sleeping pattern more than it is, so I try to stay awake till night time, where instead of falling asleep early as I'd hoped I feel energized and often stay up all night again and so the circle continues. I don't use any stimulants at all and haven't for a long time. I usually eat dinner at around 6PM and eat lots of vegetables and fish, eggs, chicken and turkey.

I have actually slept really well these last two nights for around 7 hours I think, I'm not entirely sure thought as I've gone to bed rather late at night and then woken up around noon, but it feels like an improvement for sure. I'll do more experimentation but I'm pretty sure it has to do with I've tried walking around barefoot in the garden outside before I go to bed to do some grounding / earthing, it's freaking cold this time of year though, so visualizing roots from my root chakra isn't possible for me this time of year, I simply can't focus on it because it's so cold for my feet so I've just taken a really quick walk from one end of the garden to the other and back maybe 1-2 minutes in total, but I believe is had had an positive effect.

[niki123]

It took me awhile to answer your post.I've been growing restless and agitated and full of energy lately and everything made me more energized but today,on a whim,I sprinkled salt in all the rooms in the corners and even outside my door and under the beds.I felt relief right away so I decided to come here to answer your post.Can't hurt trying !

[Floond]

It took me awhile to answer your post.I've been growing restless and agitated and full of energy lately and everything made me more energized but today,on a whim,I sprinkled salt in all the rooms in the corners and even outside my door and under the beds.I felt relief right away so I decided to come here to answer your post.Can't hurt trying !

That sounds interesting and splendid if it works for you. You used regular table salt / hydrochloride? Could you tell me more about the mechanism of action or 'philosophy' behind why this should work/wokrs? The correlation between sprinkling salt and sleeping isn't that obvious to me but would love to learn more.

[CFTraveler]

Sodium chloride sprinkled on the floors are passive countermeasures against the possibility of nonphysical entities interrupting your dreams, so there is no direct correlation in a physical sense. Salt was used in ancient times to bless and purify in a ritual way, and is still used for protection.

[niki123]

I used natural sea salt but it might even work with regular salt.To tell you the truth I don't know why it worked.Kundalini energy feels different and this kind of energy was annoying me making me nervous.Of course waking up at 2:45am after a weird dream and not being able to go back to sleep because of all the excess energy might be a reason too.My upstairs neighbors moved out and my psycho LL was upstairs walking around like a maniac all weekend and mostly every evening.I wonder why he harbors such hate towards me ?I can sure feel the hate and my body reacts in not such a pleasant way hence the energy and such.I don't know why I react like that when him or his wife are upstairs.Maybe it's the noise ?

It took me awhile to answer your post.I've been growing restless and agitated and full of energy lately and everything made me more energized but today,on a whim,I sprinkled salt in all the rooms in the corners and even outside my door and under the beds.I felt relief right away so I decided to come here to answer your post.Can't hurt trying !

That sounds interesting and splendid if it works for you. You used regular table salt / hydrochloride? Could you tell me more about the mechanism of action or 'philosophy' behind why this should work/wokrs? The correlation between sprinkling salt and sleeping isn't that obvious to me but would love to learn more.