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    1. #1
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      Dream enhanser "Milk?"

      Were do I put this?

      I went to bobbie anns blog and found an article about 2 new commercials saying that milk is a dream enhancer:

      Got milk commercial

      ***

      got milk? commercial: Goddess - YouTube

      ***

      And

      ***

      got milk? commercial: Flight - YouTube

      ***

      Then I found the whole article. It is at the top of this page. It tells you what to take to really enhance dreams.

      Go here

      ***


      ***

      Then click the top (11-May)

      (9) Got evidence? the real effect of milk on sleep and dreams

      Published on May 11, 2013
      Written By Ryan Hurd
      Last edited by melanieb; 05-25-2013 at 02:49 AM. Reason: Link removed, product site

    2. #2
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      I removed the link to a site that sells products.

      As for milk, it is a known dream enhancer because:

      Milk contains two substances that are known to be related to sleep and relaxation, the hormone melatonin and the amino acid tryptophan.
      You can find more info on this around the forum in the section called "Lucid Aids"

    3. #3
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      Sorry Mel

      I guess I was just lazy and should have posted the article instead of making folk click the link themselves to read. It is the article not the book selling website that I wanted to share. Here is the article.

      Got evidence? The Real Effect of Milk on Sleep and Dreams

      Posted by Ryan Hurd on May 11, 2013

      Two new milk advertisements by the dairy industry have been making their rounds on American television. Both ads suggest that drinking a glass of milk before bed will prevent awakenings in sleep and give you better dreams. Unfortunately, the evidence for a good night’s sleep thanks to a glass of milk is a little thin. Or should I say skim?

      How could milk give you longer dreams?

      To do so, the properties of milk would have to have an effect on the structure of sleep, by increasing the length of REM sleep (dreaming sleep), for example, or delaying a shift into wakefulness. There’s no clinical study that’s ever looked at this correlation directly.

      However, several studies have looked into the effects of a key ingredient found in milk: melatonin, an amino acid that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. A 2000 study published in the journal Sleep and Hypnosis found that taking 6mg of melatonin atnight for two weeks significantly increased bizarre dreams for college students.

      The second milk ad really seems to key into the bizarreness of dreams. Check it out.

      By the way, in dream research lingo, bizarreness is often another way of saying creepy and nightmarish. Bizarre dreams are not necessarily populated by milk goddesses.

      There’s also some clinical studies on larger doses of melatonin (over 5mg), which have been linked with increasing REM sleep in general, at least in some people, such as patients who are suffering from REM sleep deprivation.

      On a purely anecdotal level, I know of many dreamers who have reported vivid, nightmarish and lucid dreams after taking very high doses of supplemental melatonin (over 10mg. It’s not safe, don’t do this).

      So, at first blush, it seems there may be something to the dreamy effect of milk.

      Tryptophan and Melatonin

      Besides melatonin, milk contains trace amounts of tryptophan, which is another amino acid that’s found in a lot of foods, including most meats as well as scores of seeds and nuts.

      Tryptophan is synthesized in the brain as serotonin, and finally melatonin.

      Because of this relationship, tryptophan can also have a drowsiness effect when a lot is consumed at the right time.

      But here’s the rub:

      Compared to other foods, milk doesn’t really contain much tryptophan. Half a glass of milk (4 oz) contains about .08grams of tryptophan, compared with the same or equivalent amount of soybeans (.59 gram), spirulina (.9 gram) and dried white egg (1gram).

      According to sleep doctor Michael Breus, you’d need to drink a gallon of milk for the tryptophan effect. So you’ll be interrupting your dreams by going to the bathroom every 20 minutes.

      Milk doesn’t have much melatonin either; certainly much less than those 5mg mega-doses you can get from over-the-counter supplements.

      Creepily enough, there is a new kind of milk currently being tested called night milk, which is taken from cows at night that are fed a lot of tryptophan in their diets. It’s patented and supposedly contains over 25 times the melatonin of ordinary milk. It’s pretty controversial. Still, even “sleepytime milk” has a hundredth of a typical dose you’d get from a typical melatonin supplement.

      you’d need to drink a gallon of milk for the tryptophan effect

      OLD ARTICLE INSERT

      ***

      Turkey Time: the Role of Tryptophan in Sleep and Dreams

      Posted by Ryan Hurd on November 24, 2010

      My US readers are preparing for Thanksgiving, the traditional harvest meal to celebrate family and friends. And most of us that sit at the Thanksgiving table will probably want a serious nap after eating. While the tryptophan in turkey is often blamed for this holiday nap effect, actually it’s more complex than that.

      What is tryptophan? It’s an essential amino acid. Turkey has tryptophan. But so do the buttered biscuits, the cheese, the deviled eggs, and Aunt Bethany’s famous garlic mashed potatoes. Other meats like chicken, ham, fish and beef are high in tryptophan, too. It’s well represented in the dessert category, as well, including chocolate cake, pumpkin pie and banana fritters.

      But all this tryptophan is not directly responsible for the family exodus from the dining room to the den. Actually, that’s probably due to old-fashioned carb-loading.

      Here’s how it works. All those carbohydrates spike your insulin levels. This stimulates the uptake of large amino acids in the bloodstream — except for tryptophan. This gives you a suddenly high level of tryptophan in the blood, which crosses the blood-brain barrier and enters the central nervous system. From here all that excess tryptophan is synthesized into serotonin. Much of this serotonin is further transformed by the pineal gland into melatonin–and it’s the melatonin that brings on the snooze.

      A natural jet-lag remedy

      The convenient thing about melatonin is that it appears to be a natural jet-lag hang-over cure. So if you’ve taken a red-eye to see your family over the winter holidays, make sure you have a tryptophan-rich bedtime snack on friday night too. This could be a small turkey sandwich, a cup of cottage cheese, or a glass of warm milk. Excess melatonin can decrease the time it takes to get to sleep as well as strengthen the architecture of sleep: so you’ll wake up less often in the night. People report feeling more energetic the day after they take melatonin as well.

      Bizarre Dreams and Lucid Dreaming

      I'm not sure what is more bizarre: dreams caused from eating tryptophan-rich foods, or an actual turkey.

      What really interests me about the tryptophan-melatonin partnership is that they can bring on bizarre and vivid dreams. About ten years ago, dream researcher Tracey Kahan and associates from Santa Clara University ran a two-week study looking at changes in dream content after taking 6mg of melatonin supplement, compared to placebo. The melatonin-subjects’ dreams were analyzed to contain more “transformations of objects” and “overall transformations.” Kinda trippy.

      There’s also a heavily documented link between melatonin and REM latency, the time between REM sleep phases, which is the stage of sleep most remembered dreams come from. Coming full circle, Tore Nielsen and company (2010) from the Montreal-based Dream and Nightmare Laboratory have noted an association between the REM sessions that follow long latency periods and the increased level of nightmares and disturbing dream imagery in general.

      This REM effect therefore could make melatonin a potential aid for inducing lucid dreaming, albeit it bizarre and nightmarish lucid dreams. More weirdness in dreams means more chances to recognize “This is creepy and weird–hey, I’m dreaming. And I can fly!”

      harvest feasts also function as dream incubation sessions

      So is this really all by random chance that traditional harvest feasts involve carb-loading and tryptophan-rich foods, served for days-on-end with the seasonal sleep-overs of close family and friends? I argue that harvest feasts also function as dream incubation sessions. Our culture has set us up to live together, dream together, and share it all in the mornings — just like the old days, if only for a night or two, before we go back to our neolocal lives.

      So when Aunt Bethany says, “More potatoes, hon?”, that’s an invitation to dream a little deeper tonight.

      Yes, ma’am.

      References
      Kahan, T.L., Hays, J., Hirashima, B., & Johnston, K. (2000). Effects of melatonin on dream bizarreness among male and female college students. Sleep and Hypnosis, 2(2), 74-83.
      Nielsen TA, Paquette T, Solomonova E, Lara-Carrasco J, Popova A, Levrier K. (2010). REM sleep characteristics of nightmare sufferers before and after REM sleep deprivation. Sleep medicine, Feb;11(2):172-9.
      US Department of Health and Human Services: Melatonin for Treatment of Sleep Disorders

      ***

      Okay Reader

      Back to recent article:


      Drinking Milk Alone Won’t Do the Trick


      Drinking milk alone is sad.

      In any case, the amount of sleep-inducing amino acids that you consume before bed is not the only issue here.

      To affect sleep, tryptophan needs to be absorbed more readily than other amino acids, and the best way to do this is to eat foods with complex carbohydrates, which cause an insulin spike to clear out the sugars and those competing amino acids.

      Guess what?

      Milk by itself doesn’t have many complex carbs; it’s mostly simple sugars. So, to get the (ridiculously small) tryptophan effect from milk, you’d need to take it with a bowl of cereal or with some toast.

      This is a good idea anyways, as eating a small, healthy snack an hour before bed can help you lose weight.

      Milk’s secret weapon?

      There’s one more potential for milk to help with falling asleep.

      Milk contains some casein proteins, which may have a slight relaxation effect. Four of the six proteins in milk are casein proteins; the others are whey.

      Athletes and bodybuilders swear by protein shakes high in casein to help with slowing muscle atrophy during sleep, although I don’t know if this use has been clinically demonstrated.

      casein proteins may lower cortisol levels and blood pressure

      According to some recent European research, casein proteins may lower cortisol levels and blood pressure, both of which are helpful for drifting off to sleep more quickly.

      Still, there’s a lot of other dairy products that have more caseins proteins than milk –most hard cheeses and cottage cheese for example.

      Got Curds?

      Speaking of curds, there’s actually some evidence for the effect of fermented milk on sleep health. In fermented milk, the bacteria Lactobacillus helveticus may help with falling asleep and also lower blood pressure.

      Lactobacillus helveticus is the bacteria that is responsible for making cheese, and as a probiotic it’s also been linked to preventing infections and improving immune response. So that’s another reason to have cheese rather than milk before bed (because those bacteria are still in the cheese–it’s a live food).

      Go for cheddar, mozzarella or Swiss cheese. Even better, make some cheese toast, and get your complex carbs too.

      End of article.

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