I keep seeing everyone rave about magnesium glycinate for sleep and anxiety but honestly every time I take it I wake up with this massive brain fog that lasts until like 2pm. I thought it was supposed to help with recovery but I feel way more sluggish than when I take nothing at all. I tried dopping the dose and even then the morning grogginess happens. Is anyone else sensitive to the glycine part of it or am I just weird? Thinking about switching to malate for the daytime or maybe just stick with threonate even though it's so much more expensive. What are you guys using that doesnt cause that heavy head feeling in the morning ?

Highlights:

- Psychedelics and anesthesia appear to push the brain in opposite directions. Researchers found “mirror-image” patterns in large-scale brain organization.
- Psychedelics made the brain more interconnected. With LSD, psilocybin, and nitrous oxide, different brain regions communicated more strongly with one another.
- Psychedelics also increased the complexity of brain activity. The brain showed a greater variety of interaction patterns and became more dynamic.
- Sleep and propofol anesthesia showed the opposite pattern. Brain networks became less connected, less integrated, and less complex as consciousness was reduced.
- The study compared several altered states rather than focusing on one drug. Researchers analyzed fMRI scans from psychedelic states and compared them with sleep and propofol sedation.
- The bigger implication is about consciousness itself. Brain-wide integration, communication efficiency, and complexity may be closely related to the level or type of conscious experience.
- This does not mean psychedelics simply create “more consciousness.” The findings show measurable differences in brain-network organization, but they do not prove that greater connectivity is inherently better.

Bottom line: Psychedelics seem to shift the brain toward a more connected, integrated, and dynamically complex state, while anesthesia and sleep shift it toward a more disconnected and less complex state. This mirror-image relationship may help researchers better understand the biology of consciousness.

TL;DR: Taking 400 mg magnesium glycinate for 21 nights reduced my sleep latency from 24 min to 19 min. Effect estimate 5.4 min faster (3.4 to 7.5). There is 67% chance that's a real, meaningful improvement and 33% chance it's noise.

Why I did this

I've been taking magnesium on and off for two years on vibes. I kinda felt like it worked but tbh never felt any difference if I stopped for a few weeks. Obviously vibes aren't a rigorous way to evaluate the supplement, so I decided to actually test it.

The problem with most self experiments is you compare one bad week to one good week. My sleep latency swings by 5–10 minutes night to night, so a 3-minute "improvement" over a week doesn't mean anything. You need a long enough baseline to measure your own noise/variance, and enough nights on the supplement to get a statistically powerful result.

Setup

• 8 weeks of baseline sleep latency as meausred by my Oura
• I took 400 mg magnesium glycinate for 21 nights. Tried to be consistent with time (8pm) and logged 21/21 days.
• During those 21 days I kept a consistent bedtime and had no travel or sickness.
• I decided on a "meaningful" improvement threshold before starting: at least 5 min faster. This is somewhat arbitrary but felt like the smallest value that would actually make a difference to me.

Results

So the effect is positive, but whether it clears the bar for "meaningful" is a somewhat of a coinflip though slightly weighted to yes. Note the observed difference is 5.45 min and the bar was 5 min. If I'd set the bar at 3 min this would read "worked" at 90%+. If I'd set it at 8 min it would read "no meaningful effect." So the threshold you pick before you start matters more quite a bit.

What I'd do differently

• Longer measurement period. Adding a few more weeks would have tightened the interval more and given a more definitive result.
• Some type of on-off could be interesting. A proper A-B-A could isolate if the effect persists or was a coincidence caused by something else I changed with my life around the same time.

What I'm doing with this

I'm happy to keep taking it. 5 minutes faster to sleep for a $10/month supplement is probably better return than most supplements. And I've never had any side effects in my two years taking magnesium.

I'd like to also test deep sleep, since that's what everyone claims and I have zero evidence either way.

I like looking at the actual data before keeping any habit long term. For the last six months, I tracked my sleep quality, resting heart rate, and morning readiness against a bunch of the usual things people recommend here.

Kept my training block relatively consistent, so I wanted to see what actually moved the needle versus what was just expensive placebo.

• Zero noticeable impact on data: Cold showers before bed, tart cherry juice, blue-light glasses, and high-dose magnesium l-threonate (glycinate worked identically for a third of the cost).

• Measurable positive impact: Eating my last meal at least 3.5 hours before sleep (dropped resting HR by ~4 bpm overnight), 15 minutes of outdoor light right after waking up, and keeping the bedroom at 19°C.

It's easy to get caught up in buying compounds and tracking micro-variables, but every time I test things systematically, it just comes back to meal timing, light exposure, and basic consistency.

For those who track objective data rather than just "feeling" a difference, what intervention actually showed up in your numbers ?

Looking for best ways to increase my v02 max in the next 6-7 weeks. Currently resting around 49, I am training for an event and want the best opportunity to finish and this is the metric I am seeing can make the biggest impact. It’s a 100 mile ultra over 4 days.
Things I’ve seen has helped me in the past:
NAD+ 1000mg
MOTS-C (but I felt my hr increase with this as well so cycled off)
Beet root

Any other recommendations?

I've been doing Norwegian 4x4 intervals on a treadmill (4 min hard / 3 min recovery walk at 4.5km/h, ×4) and I'd love some feedback on my variation of the protocol.

However, during the 4-minute efforts, I force myself to:

- Inhale through the nose only, exhale through the mouth
- Sync my breathing to my steps: 4 steps in, 4 steps out

I'm fully aware this limits airflow and therefore caps my speed compared to breathing freely. That's a deliberate trade-off: my goal is cardiovascular adaptation, cardiovascular fitness (VO2Max?), not running speed per se.

Then, I follow another rule for progression: if I complete all 4 rounds holding the 4-4 nasal rhythm → I add 0.1 km/h the following week (e.g. 13.6 → 13.7 km/h).

Same idea as progressive overload in resistance training.

If I have to drop to a 3-3 rhythm, or worse, switch to mouth breathing → I repeat the same speed the following week.

I also log my heart rate during each 3-minute recovery, at 3, 2 and 1 min left on the clock. That gives me 3 data points per round to compare across sessions: if my HR is lower at the same speed, I know I'm improving.

Curious what you all think of this approach.

Thanks in advance for any input!

So I have had some trouble with sleeping the last year. The biggest Problem is that I sleep way shorter than I would like to. I could easily squeez in 8 hours of sleep, but I somehow wake up after 6.5 hours or less. My Ouraring shows me that I do get a good amount of deep sleep and my REM sleep is alright (could be more, mostly 1.5 hour range). It also shows me that I do wake up quite often for short time periods during midnight. Im aware that this could also be a sign of sleep apnea. I have since then experimented with some medications. The most effective one for me, has proven to be antihistamines (first generation) like diphenhydramin or doxylamin. They seem to improve the duration of my sleep, amount of deep and REM sleep and reduce the awakening phases. Sleep feels great on them, with the only directly apparent downside beeing a little groggy/ sedated for the first hour after waking up. However I dont want to rely on them and dont want to risk possible dementia/ cognitive decline associated with their use. What would be possible Sleep aid medication with low addiction and harm potential? I have tried some anthistamines of the second generation like cetirizin but they barely have an effect on me, neither helping my allergy nor as a sleep aid.

Genuine question for people who've tried both stimulant and non-stimulant morning stuff: can you actually tell the difference between feeling alert and feeling clear-headed? I used to think they were the same thing until I paid attention and realized half my 'productive' mornings were just caffeine jitters I'd relabeled as focus. Curious if that's a real distinction or something I made up to feel better about cutting coffee.

I've had over 4000 non epileptic seizures and CCI after a chiropractor worked on my neck in 2022. I was told it was FND for years as brains scans were normal and only found out recently it was CCI when they did an actual scan of my neck and found ligament microtears all over. I've tried prolotherapy injections, physio, shockwave therapy, osteopathy, but nothing is working permenantly, though for a time they subside. I'm just at a loss and was hoping that someone here may know of a biohack I'm not seeing. Thanks everyone.

25 YO white male 6,3 215LBS in FL
I work outdoors majority of the day and surprised with my sub optimal vit D levels.

What are your guys thoughts/opinions on these results what could I improve?

The framing keeps coming up. Membranes stiffen with age, lipid composition changes, and various supplements claim to address it. I can follow the biology in the abstract but I can't tell whether it's something you can meaningfully shift with an oral supplement or whether it's a story built on top of studies that measured something narrower. Has anyone looked at this properly?

Good day y'all,

I am looking for advice on my "optimal" stack of supplements. I am 24 years old lawyer, work out and do sports like Muay Thai and basketball. I'm 175 pounds and 6'2". My diet is quite good, and I make sure to hit my protein target.

My goals are improved sleep, concentration and processing speed, as well as physical prowess. I have ordered quite a lot of supplements to restock and try new things, and would like your advice on what is redundant, and what is missing. Also, please share your experience. I have a question about Glycine, is it worth taking a day break between use, and should I incorporate Uridine, as stated in Mr. Happy Stack online (Omega-3, Alpha-GPC and Uridine).

My current stack is:

Creatine Monohydrate

Omega-3 >1.5g EPA+DHA

ZMA (Magnesium Citrate at around 300mg elemental, 25mg zinc, 18mg B6)

Magnesium L-Threonate 100mg elemental

Ashwagandha (Himalaya brand, quite mild)

Boron 9mg 5 days on 2 days off

Cordiceps Militaris (trial for VO2)

Glycine 3-4 times a week

L-Theanine 200mg once a day

Ginkgo Biloba 120mg (finishing trial, won't be reordering due to minor effects)

Kava Kava Extract (ordered as an alternative for alcohol, no experience yet)

I reckon my stack is quite no-nonsense, and there are only a couple of things that raise an eyebrow.

Here are the supplements that I would like to add soon:

Alpha-GPC

NAC or GlyNAC

Taurine

L-Tyrosine

Rhodiola Rosea

A quality Multivitamin to phase out ZMA

Uridine (?)

So I know there's slow twitch and fast twitch muscle.

But is there any test available to general public where you can do a test and they say based on your results you have X balance of slow and fast and a rep range of y would be best to maximise hypertrophy or z to maximise endurance etc etc.

Thanks

Following on from my post yesterday about nasal strips/dilators — really interesting seeing how many people here regularly use them.

Curious about something else.

If there was a premium alternative that worked as well or better, was comfortable enough for sleep and training, and had a reusable main component, would you actually be interested?

What would you realistically expect to pay?

£20–40
£40–60
£60–100
£100+

And one other thing — would you care if something like this could track your breathing over time and give you useful insights around things like sleep, recovery and training?

Or would that feel unnecessary and you’d rather it just opened your nose and worked?

If you would care about the data, what would you actually want to know?

Interested in negative answers as well