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Circadian Rhythm Disorders: More Than Insomnia

While nearly everyone will suffer from insomnia at some point in their life, circadian rhythm disorders are more serious and more difficult to treat. In these disorders, the patient’s body is not releasing hormones for sleep, wakefulness and other daily activities at the right time. The result is that people can feel tired when they are supposed to be working, or they are wide awake when it is time to sleep. This can lead to fatigue, depression and a variety of health effects.

The mechanism of these disorders is generally not well known, but researchers have identified several genes behind circadian rhythm disorders. In a healthy person, the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus processes information such as light levels and temperature. Hormones are released to make the person sleepy, more awake, hungry, or whatever is needed at that time in the day. In a person with these disorders, these hormones are released at the wrong time, in the wrong amounts, or not at all.

Types of Circadian Rhythm Disorders

Circadian Rhythm Disorders: Health Consequences and Treatments

There are multiple types of circadian rhythm disorders, each requiring different treatments and a unique approach. The two most common, shift work disorder and jet lag, are a result of a person’s lifestyle conflicting with their circadian rhythm. In shift work disorder, people who work nights or other odd hours begin to have trouble falling asleep or staying awake when needed because they do not sleep and wake at “normal” times. In jet lag disorder, a person who travels to a new time zone may have physical effects such as fatigue and memory loss due to the shift in environmental cues such as light.

There are circadian sleep disorders that are not caused by the environment as well. Delayed phase sleep disorder is common in teens and young adults. In this disorder, the timing of the circadian rhythm is shifted so that people cannot go to sleep until very late at night. If they cannot also sleep late, they will suffer the effects of insomnia and fatigue. Advanced phase sleep disorder is just the opposite. In this sleep disorder usually seen in the elderly, people feel sleepy very early in the evening and wake up early in the morning. There are even non-24-hour sleep-wake disorders in which the internal clock is not set to the normal 24 hours.

Treating Circadian Rhythm Disorders

Circadian sleep disorders can make you tired, overemotional and even disrupt your thinking. In addition, they can increase your risk of developing serious diseases as you age. However, there are many approaches to treating these disorders. Many people can get a better night’s sleep by taking a melatonin supplement. Because melatonin is the hormone released to make people sleepy, taking this supplement can help people who have trouble falling asleep when it is time. Bright light therapy during the day also has been found to be helpful. Certain wavelengths of light tell your brain that it is daytime, which encourages making wakefulness hormones.

People who have circadian rhythm disorders were once considered lazy or even mentally ill. However, modern medicine recognizes these disorders as a physical disease with a variety of successful treatments. Getting treatment for a circadian rhythm disorder allows many people to reclaim high energy and good overall health.

Can’t seem to fall asleep? New research suggests that a glass of “night milk” may be as effective as common sedatives in promoting sleep.

Next time you have trouble falling or staying asleep, reach for a glass of night milk instead of into your medicine cabinet. To clarify, this beverage isn’t called night milk because you drink it before bedtime; it’s actually cow’s milk that is harvested from the cow in the evening hours. If you’re like the majority of people learning about this new concept, you’re probably wondering why the time the cow is milked makes a difference.

Thanks to a study performed by a Korean research team we have the answers.

The Science Behind Night Milk

Recently, a new animal study that was published in the Journal of Medicinal Food determined that before bed, a mother’s milk takes on an enhanced chemical structure with elevated levels of tryptophan and melatonin.

Authors of the study from Sahmyook University in Seoul, South Korea concluded from this finding that night milk may be a promising natural remedy for anxiety and sleep disturbances.

Can Night Milk Improve Sleep and Reduce Anxiety?

To test this theory, milk from cows was collected at various times during the day and night. The milk was then put into powder form and fed to groups of mice.

Evaluation of the milk’s effect on both groups revealed that the mice fed night milk were notably less active than the mice that received milk from cows who were milked during the day.

Surprisingly, the mice who were less active were more apt to explore open spaces. Researchers interpreted their attempt to explore as being reflective of reduced anxiety, with effects comparable to the effects of diazepam, a common sedative used to treat anxiety.

The night milk was found to contain nearly 10 times more melatonin and 24 percent more tryptophan than daytime milk.

However, the effects have yet to be tested on people, though many people have been drinking milk or taking melatonin to successfully fall asleep for years.

New Theory, or Just First of Its Kind Research?

While this is new research, it is not a new concept. A German company patented “nocturnal milk” and produced a powder from milk that had been collected from cows between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

The effectiveness of nocturnal milk can be vouched for by happy consumers like Maike Schnittger, who was able to get through a troublesome period of anxiety by taking the powder that helped her fall asleep within half an hour. She also stated that she fell into a deep sleep and felt really awake the next morning.

Carl Bazil, director of the Epilepsy and Sleep Division of the neurology department at Columbia University, was a little skeptical about the night milk concept. However, he stated that the theory behind it is correct, as melatonin and tryptophan have proven sedative properties and milk is also known to help people fall asleep.

The Effects of Melatonin and Tryptophan on Sleep

Wondering just how the tryptophan- and melatonin-rich milk might work? Studies dating all the way back to the 1970s have suggested that taking between one and 15 grams of tryptophan at bedtime can help people fall asleep. Even smaller doses, as little as 250 milligrams, were found to provide people with increased sleep quality by lengthening the amount of time they spent in the deepest stage of sleep.

Normal sleep is produced by two main biomolecules: the hormone melatonin and the neurotransmitter serotonin. Both of these are made naturally in the body from tryptophan, making tryptophan a valuable supplement for those seeking a better quality of sleep.

Scientists reviewed 15 studies of sleep in healthy adults and noted that the administration of melatonin significantly reduced the amount of time needed to fall asleep, boosted the percentage of time that people were actually asleep while in bed and increased their total sleep duration. This is due to the active role melatonin has in the sleep-wake cycle.

So, does this research warrant replacing conventional sleep aids with a glass of night milk? For some, maybe, if they have access to night milk. Although this is excellent research and a great first step in providing a natural solution for two very common conditions, i.e. anxiety and sleep disturbances, we anticipate that a human study is most likely imminent.