That’s super cool. You should headline that you’re looking at a modified peptide somewhere on Manifund (if you’re not already) -- that seems significant—I don’t know if the clinical trials on orexin do that. Tagging @gsfitzgerald in case he has thoughts (he is a neuroscience PhD student who knows a lot about peptides).
I appreciate the kind words too regarding my post!
Backing up a bit, I’m pretty skeptical of the ability to reduce sleep need generally unless you are able to increase sleep quality (or waste clearance?) to reduce necessary sleep time, but I think that’s a tall order given that sleep is orchestrated by an intricate dance of multiple neurotransmitters…
I have a long postabout how I tried like 10 sleep aids—it went viral on Reddit and is the most-read thing I’ve ever written. Anyway, all sleep aids seem to extend sleep time though and many disrupt sleep cycles—so you’re sleeping longer than optimal and with poorer quality . The one that comes closest to reducing sleep need IME is dayvigo (orexin antagonist) - I generally get 7 solid hours of very high quality sleep when taking it, spending like 7.5 hours in bed, it as opposed to without it I often have a longer time in bed overall. The combo of an orexin antagonist at night and an orexin agonist in the morning intrigues me a lot—that’s actually the main reason I’m interested in your work. I know at least two people in the longevity community who now take orexin angatonists daily before bed “for neuroprotection”, and they might benefit from your work also.
Also, I really like the idea of having new tools available to safely offset occasional sleep deprivation.
I also have a friend with narcolepsy and I think any experiments with modified orexin (especially capped/modified) are very relevant to the narcolepsy community, also.
Interesting that an antagonist seems to reduce your sleep need. Maybe medications that increase REM are the way to go rather than stimulants like orexin?
On whether sleep need reduction is possible, it’s definitely an open question. I’m encouraged by the existence of short sleepers and my hand-wavy argument that sleep evolved to save energy. But entirely possible that we discover a deep reason sleep reduction is infeasible.
https://splittinginfinity.substack.com/p/sleep-need-reduction-therapies
That’s super cool. You should headline that you’re looking at a modified peptide somewhere on Manifund (if you’re not already) -- that seems significant—I don’t know if the clinical trials on orexin do that. Tagging @gsfitzgerald in case he has thoughts (he is a neuroscience PhD student who knows a lot about peptides).
I appreciate the kind words too regarding my post!
Backing up a bit, I’m pretty skeptical of the ability to reduce sleep need generally unless you are able to increase sleep quality (or waste clearance?) to reduce necessary sleep time, but I think that’s a tall order given that sleep is orchestrated by an intricate dance of multiple neurotransmitters…
I have a long post about how I tried like 10 sleep aids—it went viral on Reddit and is the most-read thing I’ve ever written. Anyway, all sleep aids seem to extend sleep time though and many disrupt sleep cycles—so you’re sleeping longer than optimal and with poorer quality . The one that comes closest to reducing sleep need IME is dayvigo (orexin antagonist) - I generally get 7 solid hours of very high quality sleep when taking it, spending like 7.5 hours in bed, it as opposed to without it I often have a longer time in bed overall. The combo of an orexin antagonist at night and an orexin agonist in the morning intrigues me a lot—that’s actually the main reason I’m interested in your work. I know at least two people in the longevity community who now take orexin angatonists daily before bed “for neuroprotection”, and they might benefit from your work also.
Also, I really like the idea of having new tools available to safely offset occasional sleep deprivation.
I also have a friend with narcolepsy and I think any experiments with modified orexin (especially capped/modified) are very relevant to the narcolepsy community, also.
Interesting that an antagonist seems to reduce your sleep need. Maybe medications that increase REM are the way to go rather than stimulants like orexin?
On whether sleep need reduction is possible, it’s definitely an open question. I’m encouraged by the existence of short sleepers and my hand-wavy argument that sleep evolved to save energy. But entirely possible that we discover a deep reason sleep reduction is infeasible. https://splittinginfinity.substack.com/p/sleep-need-reduction-therapies
I’m excited that orexin agonists are getting more attention from pharma companies. Sleep need reduction is one thing, but helping people with narcolepsy escape their circadian prison is really important! https://autismcrisis.blogspot.com/2010/05/circadian-prison.html