Thank you so much for a fantastic interview! Sorry I’m late to the discussion on this episode. Hopefully someone will still see this…
I’ve been following a few of Dr. Walker’s interviews lately, and I’m becoming more and more concerned for my future mental health.
I was diagnosed with narcolepsy at age 15. I’m about to be 32. I have most of the classic symptoms of the disease including excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, vivid dreaming, and irregular NREM/REM patterns. The most alarming as it relates to Dr. Walker’s research is the lack of deep NREM sleep. In two clinical sleep studies (the first at initial diagnosis at age 15, and again about 1.5 years ago) I almost entirely skipped past stages 3 and 4 NREM. In a couple sessions I went from full consciousness to REM sleep in under 1 minute.
At two different stages of my life I have tried Xyrem to supplement my deep sleep at night. Long story short: I had a bad sleep paralysis episode that made me not want to continue use.
So, if you’ve made it this far, what can I do to help improve the amount of NREM sleep I get (aside from drug induced sleep)? I have a pretty well regulated sleep/wake schedule, I do CrossFit 3 times a week, eat clean (and try to prevent late meals), I have a very bright office, and I don’t use electronics much at all during the evening. Any help is welcome.
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Thank you so much for a fantastic interview! Sorry I’m late to the discussion on this episode. Hopefully someone will still see this…
I’ve been following a few of Dr. Walker’s interviews lately, and I’m becoming more and more concerned for my future mental health.
I was diagnosed with narcolepsy at age 15. I’m about to be 32. I have most of the classic symptoms of the disease including excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, vivid dreaming, and irregular NREM/REM patterns. The most alarming as it relates to Dr. Walker’s research is the lack of deep NREM sleep. In two clinical sleep studies (the first at initial diagnosis at age 15, and again about 1.5 years ago) I almost entirely skipped past stages 3 and 4 NREM. In a couple sessions I went from full consciousness to REM sleep in under 1 minute.
At two different stages of my life I have tried Xyrem to supplement my deep sleep at night. Long story short: I had a bad sleep paralysis episode that made me not want to continue use.
So, if you’ve made it this far, what can I do to help improve the amount of NREM sleep I get (aside from drug induced sleep)? I have a pretty well regulated sleep/wake schedule, I do CrossFit 3 times a week, eat clean (and try to prevent late meals), I have a very bright office, and I don’t use electronics much at all during the evening. Any help is welcome.
Thanks again for a great interview!