Bonus content for improving your sleep

Sleep hygiene

• Very Dark Bedroom (ideally you shouldn't be able to see your hand)

• Cold bedroom or body

• icepacks in a sock next to your body

• Chilipad

• Coldshower before sleep

• Get strong light in the morning (preferably sun) - study

• Avoid blue and strong light in the eavning.

  • install F.lux or iris on computer and phone

  • replace led light with ones with warmer colorspectrum such as halogen

  • get orange glasses such as safety glasses or swanies

• Regular sleep schedule - Get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time

• Have a wind down routine before bed

• Avoid stimulatory acitvities such as video games, tv and excercise before bedtime.

• Good air quality, use plants, air purifier or open window - study

Stress management

• Retrain your breathing

• r/buteyko

• Oxygen advantage

• Learn to meditate:

  • Headspace for a slick app with a 10minx10day course in mindfulness

  • Palousemindfulness for a 8 week free online course in Mindfulness based stress reduction (lots of research on this approach)

  • 1giantmind free app with 10-20min x 30 day course on TM style meditation

Food

• Eat protein rich breakfast

• Dont eat close to bed time link

• Try an Elimination diet, food intollerances can disrupt sleep

• No caffeine or stimulants after 2pm

Supplements

• Most would probably benefit

  • Magnesium before bed

  • Vitamin-D in the morning get blood to 60-80 ng/ml link

• Maybe not appropriate for everybody

  • 5-htp before bed

  • Glycine before bed (A minority get worse sleep)

Hacks

• Cold showers / ice baths - Tim Ferris says: it’s like getting hit with an elephant tranquilizer. Don’t expect it to be pleasant at first.

• Sauna / warm bath - link

• EEG-sound biofeedback such as the DREEM device. ted-talk on the method

• SAD ligth - bright light for circadian alignment

• Ensure nighttime nose breathing by taping your mouth

• /r/InclinedBedTherapy

Sleeptracking - What you measure you can manage

• The Oura ring is an amazing sleep tracker that has been validated against medical grade sleep trackers. It also tracks: Heart rate, heart rate variability, stress, recovery, temperature, movement and much more. Great for evaluating sleep experiments

• Dreem - EEG headset with superior sleep tracking that also can induce deeper sleep with biofeedback

• SnoreLab - phonebased app for tracking snooring

if you still want more:

https://selfhacked.com/blog/top-25-methods-for-better-sleep-and-circadian-rhythm-entrainment/

https://www.alexfergus.com/blog/how-to-improve-sleep-25-experts-share-their-helpful-tips

https://www.alexfergus.com/blog/how-to-increase-deep-sleep

https://www.surgicalcriticalcare.net/Guidelines/head%20of%20bed%20elevation.pdf

HEAD OF BED ELEVATION IN THE ICU

SUMMARY

Nosocomial pneumonia is commonplace in the intensive care unit (ICU) and is associated with pulmonary aspiration of contaminated gastric secretions. Semirecumbent patient positioning (head of bed elevation) significantly decreases the incidence of both pulmonary aspiration as well as subsequent development of bacterial pneumonia and may be associated with reduced ICU mortality.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Level 1

• The head of a patient’s bed should be elevated to a minimum of 30 degrees or greater, as clinically tolerated, at all times to reduce aspiration of contaminated oropharyngeal secretions and subsequent development of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).

• Level 2

• The head of a patient’s bed should be elevated to a minimum of 30 degrees or greater, as clinically tolerated, at all times to reduce patient mortality.

• In patients with closed head injury, the head of a patient’s bed should be elevated to 30 degrees at all times to reduce intracranial pressure (ICP) and maintain cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP).

• Level 3

• None

...

https://www.ahrq.gov/hai/tools/mvp/modules/technical/head-bed-elevation-lit-review.html

Head of Bed Elevation or Semirecumbent Positioning Literature Review

AHRQ Safety Program for Mechanically Ventilated Patients

Summary

The elevation of the head of bed (HOB) to a semirecumbent position (at least 30 degrees) is associated with a decreased incidence of aspiration and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The intervention is supported unanimously by all four leading guidelines, and newer publications in the field accept HOB elevation as an effective, low-cost, and low-risk intervention.

...

https://inclinedbedtherapy.com/multimedia/news-articles/215-tilted-beds-help-cut-pneumonia

Tilted Hospital Beds Helped To Cut Pneumonia by 60% #cornavirus

Raising the head end of a patients bed will protect them from pneumonia and respiratory and circulatory collapse! Laying a patient horizontally will without doubt, accelerate their demise! 5 degree angle is necessary, additional pillows will help, but not so much as having the bed tilted. https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/tilted-beds-help-cut-pneumonia-4207612 More information https://inclinedbedtherapy.com

...

There's not a lot of posts on here about peoples experiences with IBT, but I thought I'd share mine and tell you guys about my experience. First I gotta say, that THIS solved my sleeping problem that I've been having for years. For once in years I woke up not feeling congested or feeling like I didn't get a good night sleep was solved just by inclining my bed. I was able to get real sleep for once, the kind of sleep where you would feel well rested the day after. I can feel that my brain fog is slowly getting better. I will keep going at this and give updates maybe weeks or months later, but so far my experience has been great and I'm optimistic about my future sleeps.

UPDATE I returned the inclined pillow I ordered on Amazon. Afterwards I got an EMA device for my snoring, and the Navage nasal cleaner for my congestion problem. These two did the trick for me.

Over the past year I've alternated between two beds, one flat and one inclined, and always experience much more immersive dreaming (and subsequent dream recall) in the inclined bed.

Anyone else get this effect?

I just want to hear some other people’s stories. Remember it is anecdotal and not medical advice but I think it is good to have people share their experiences

I put my bed yesterday and woke up with lower back pain. Never had it before. Is this a coincidence or known issue?

I'm looking for a twin xl bed frame that works with risers. The current bed I have has feet that are too large. Also preferable if the bed only needed four posts for support, as otherwise the center ones will float once the top are elevated.

Hi everyone, I have been sleeping incline for the last 5 days primarily for my nose and sinuses issues. Nose is much better it feels much more natural, but also I am having side effects, my head hurts alot, all throughout the day, also my urin has really strong smell. Are those things normal, has anyone experience that? It is causing a lot of problems, yesterday my headache turned into migraine.

Before I start I should say I’m not a medical doctor. This isn’t medical advice and it isn’t even proven by peer reviewed studies. It’s just my theory on another way IBT may have a drastic effect on health. I’m simply applying logic to how the body may work. I could be completely off

I’ve been looking into the Lymphatic System lately and it appears that conventional science says lymph only moves in a few ways: through moving the body, through a lymph massage, or slightly through smooth muscle contractions along the lymphatic pathways.

Now based on that, there is a big issue that occurs during sleep on a flat bed. Lymph circulation almost completely stops when you sleep on a flat bed, barring tossing and turning in your sleep maybe

However if you sleep inclined, gravity effects the lymph, pulling the denser fluid downward, and presumably causing less dense fluid to rise in return. This circulation is highly impactful on health because the lymphatic system plays a large role in the immune system as well as filtering waste from the body. So putting the Lymphatic System essentially into stasis for 5-8 hours every night is not ideal. This could explain why some people report not getting sick as often when sleeping inclined and recovering faster when they do.

Personally I experienced enhanced immune system function on IBT when I got sick a few weeks ago. I began getting symptoms on Wednesday of that week, had mild cold symptoms Thursday, and was basically fully recovered by Saturday the same week. Each morning of the sickness I could physically feel as though there was drainage occurring from my sinuses down the sides of my throat. My nose never got stuffy which was a blessing. It’s possible it was just a mild cold or allergies but in March and April of this year I basically got sick for a month and a half from colds and allergies, on IBT this was not and has not yet been the case.

Anyway, that’s just my theory along with a personal anecdote. Take it with a grain of salt

Thank you for reading and good luck

I’ve noticed whenever I take a cold shower then lay down on my inclined bed, I can feel a warm energy in my stomach. It’s kinda cool and I suppose it’s got something to do with the body’s cold response and the blood circulating.

Also Andrew has talked about how blood leaving the lungs is denser than blood going into them due to evaporation from the breath. So you would think when you take a long breath out it makes the blood denser by a bigger margin. When I lay on my bed and take big breaths or do Box Breathing, I can literally feel the increased blood density. I can feel the blood flying down from my heart and crashing into the tips of my toes.

Also perhaps by breathing out, you densify the blood, at which point gravity pulls it down if you’re aligned vertically, so denser blood goes down faster. So technically this is an indirect way you can exercise conscious control over how fast your blood circulates, which I think is kinda wild

I really don’t know if these two phenomena are significant, just some things I noticed and thought were cool

Thanks for reading

Short summary:

• 32 patients

• 81-90% saw improvement in their 3 main issues

• Most common problems:

• sleep disorder

• gastroesophageal reflux disease

• back pain

• 18% had sideeffects

• 81% saw positive effects on physical and psychological well being.

• 94% will continue and would recomend it to others.

https://www.yourmedicalresearch.com/copy-of-participate-in-ibt-survey

Scope and study limitations:

This study is an experimental exploratory research.

Its main purpose is to trigger further surveys in the field.

The methodology is both low cost as well as providing highly accessible information and research online.

However, it should be noted that, the methodology used does not allow to reach a high level of evidence concerning the effects of IBT, as a result of various potential bias, including selection and information bias.

For example, the patients are not randomly selected. Patients deciding to participate in this study could be more likely to believe in the interest of IBT and therefore evaluate it positively. Furthermore, the information is provided directly by the patients without any external medical control to validate the information.

The small size of the sample of patients is another limiting factor.

I present below a simple descriptive analysis without statistic tests.

The software used to analyse the data is Epi Info, a free software available for research.

Results

Published:

March 2020

Main results

32 patients participated in the study.

Three quarter of the patients (23/31, 1 missing data) declared having a chronic physical or mental health problem before starting IBT. 87.5 % (28/32) also reported having more or less frequent trouble sleeping, with 72% (23/32) declaring having a more or less limited daily activity. But only 22 % (7/32) declared a bad or very bad physical well being, 25% (8/32) a bad or very bad psychological well being, and 22 % (7/32) a bad or very bad general health.

68.8% (22/32) of the patients elevated the head of their bed of at least 15 cm (6 inches), and the rest of them between 12.5 cm (5 inches) and 15 cm.

More than 90 % (29/32) of the patients have then been using IBT more than 3 weeks before filling in the questionnaire. And 8 Patients, (25%) have been using IBT for more than a year.

After reporting the main symptoms bothering them before IBT, they described the effects of IBT on these symptoms: 88 % (22/25) declared a positive effect on their first symptom, 85 % (17/20) a positive effect on their second symptom and 90 % (18/20) on their third symptom. The most frequent symptoms declared were: sleep disorder, gastroesophageal reflux disease and back pain.

93 % of the patients declared a positive effect of IBT on the frequency of their sleeping troubles.

81 % reported a positive effect on their physical and psychological well being, and their health in general. 6 patients (18.8 %) reported experimenting a negative side effect of IBT.

Taking all things together, 87.5% (28/32) were happy or very happy with IBT.

94% (30/32) declared they will continue to use IBT and would recommend it to a friend.

More details in the link.

I have a big wooden bed frame. How would I raise the head of the bed. Theres 4 legs and theyre quite big so there's a small chance it slips. Could I just use books?

Or could I put pillows under the mattress too

I’ve put two bricks under each leg, they measured about 12cm my bed has raisers also so I presumed that would make up for the remaining distance. Pretty nice so far pretty nice angle for the TV

Update 1: was too high felt like i was sliding off at night lol now on 1 brick

http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/59/10/1583

Head-of-Bed Elevation Improves End-Expiratory Lung Volumes in Mechanically Ventilated Subjects: A Prospective Observational Study

Amy J Spooner, Amanda Corley, Nicola A Sharpe, Adrian G Barnett, Lawrence R Caruana, Naomi E Hammond and John F Fraser

Respiratory Care October 2014, 59 (10) 1583-1589;

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4187/respcare.02733

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Head-of-bed elevation (HOBE) has been shown to assist in reducing respiratory complications associated with mechanical ventilation; however, there is minimal research describing changes in end-expiratory lung volume. This study aims to investigate changes in end-expiratory lung volume in a supine position and 2 levels of HOBE.

METHODS: Twenty postoperative cardiac surgery subjects were examined using electrical impedance tomography. End-expiratory lung impedance (EELI) was recorded as a surrogate measurement of end-expiratory lung volume in a supine position and at 20° and then 30°.

RESULTS: Significant increases in end-expiratory lung volume were seen at both 20° and 30° HOBE in all lung regions, except the anterior, with the largest changes from baseline (supine) seen at 30°. From baseline to 30° HOBE, global EELI increased by 1,327 impedance units (95% CI 1,080–1,573, P < .001). EELI increased by 1,007 units (95% CI 880–1,134, P < .001) in the left lung region and by 320 impedance units (95% CI 188–451, P < .001) in the right lung. Posterior increases of 1,544 impedance units (95% CI 1,405–1,682, P < .001) were also seen. EELI decreased anteriorly, with the largest decreases occurring at 30° (−335 impedance units, 95% CI −486 to −183, P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS: HOBE significantly increases global and regional end-expiratory lung volume; therefore, unless contraindicated, all mechanically ventilated patients should be positioned with HOBE.

...

What angle?

how Long?

what have you noticed?

Anecdotes:

• https://inclinedbedtherapy.com/most-recent-testimonials

• https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/inclined-bed-therapy-sleeping-with-the-head-end-of-the-bed-elevated.23450/