Dr. Matt Walker

So what's interesting about that drug, though, is that it's mixed in terms of the studies, but quite reliably, it does seem to improve sleep, very much so.

But it seems to, unlike those classic sleeping pills, which artificially look like they're increasing deep sleep, even though they're not, they're doing sedation, these drugs can improve most all aspects of sleep, but including REM sleep, which those classic sleeping pills did not.

Why is it doing that?

We still don't know, but one of the things that these DORA drugs do that block the erection, that take off the on position of the light switch and flip them off, when you switch it off, it can actually then allow the activation or the stimulation of something called melanin concentrated hormone or MCH in the brain.

And that, when it is triggered on, can stimulate another chemical called acetylcholine in the brain, which is a neurotransmitter.

If there is one neurotransmitter in the brain that seems to be responsible almost exclusively for this thing called REM sleep, or dominantly, I should say, for REM sleep, it is acetylcholine.

And this was discovered way back in the 1970s by one of my former mentors, Alan Hobson at Harvard.

And what this drug may be doing is indirectly boosting the amounts of acetylcholine in the brain, particularly in a region of the brain called the basal forebrain, which is a REM sleep regulating region.

And that's the reason that you get boosts in REM sleep.

And people also report dreaming a little bit more too on those medications.

So thermal manipulation, getting you to net neutral thermal zones helps increase REM sleep.

But also there are some medications that

We're not necessarily designed for REM sleep enhancements selectively, but there is evidence that they do that.

So if you ask me, where are we at with REM?

It's certainly more bereft of methods than deep non-REM sleep, but we are starting to find some now.

So that's one of the problems.

The second is,

you may stop because you're going to have to take them before bed.

You may force REM sleep to arrive earlier and you may therefore come at the cost of deep non-REM sleep.

And so you'd have to get some kind of timed release capsule, which you can do.