Who should this HSF help?
Having “no insomnia” generally means that long periods of wakefulness rarely occur. Non-insomniacs fall asleep quickly and remain asleep (or quickly return to sleep) throughout the night to obtain a healthy total duration of sleep. “Insomnia” disturbs this ideal by thwarting the person's ability to initiate and/or to maintain sleep.

Together, this Formula's specific niacinamide and melatonin are effective in helping to maintain sleep. But their effects are deliberately delayed. The addition of oleamide enhances the sleep maintenance provided by the first two ingredients but also offers relief for those who experience difficulty initiating sleep at the start of the night. This formula is effective for resolving both forms of insomnia. It will help initiate sleep (within 10 to 20 minutes) as well as either keep its user asleep all night, or allow them to quickly return to sleep after a waking interruption.

Here is sample of typical feedback we receive from successful users of these ingredients:

Will it knock you out?
No. After helping to initiate sleep, this formula is not designed or expected to heavily sedate its user and prevent all mid-sleep awakenings due to bladder urgency, acid reflux, loud noise, or other nocturnal disturbances. It has proven to be effective in dramatically shortening those awakenings to allow its user to return quickly to sleep.

Locating & purchasing the HSF ingredients
Please see the individual ingredient details below for the functional role of each of the formula's ingredients. The following provides a purchasing and brief overview.

• These specific tablet formulations were carefully selected, chosen and tested from among many others. These exact tablets work best. Please obtain exactly these, at least for your initial use of this formula. DO NOT SUBSTITUTE. If you then choose to experiment and wander (which would be great if you were to find something better), you will have a known baseline for comparison.
• eVitamins is a web supplier with a large international presence. If you check with eVitamins, select your country in the upper left and see how they compare. There is nothing special about where you purchase these, but please be very sure that you obtain the same timed release versions of both supplements.
• Melatonin is readily available in the USA, but being a hormone it may be more tightly regulated in other countries. A UK resident recommended Vitamin Grocer as a good UK-based supplier of the proper Natrol melatonin
• You may be able to find additional sources of the niacinamide and melatonin by searching for their registered UPC (Universal Product Code):
  • Source Naturals, Timed-Release, 1500mg Niacinamide: UPC 021078005063
  • Nature's Plus, Sustained Release, 1000mg Niacinamide: UPC 097467019300
  • 21st Century, Prolonged Release, 500mg Niacinamide: UPC 740985225509
  • Natrol, Time Release, 1mg Melatonin: UPC 047469004675
  • Oleamide, in dietary supplement grade, is available from Amazon or Liftmode.
• The links here are affiliate-free. I would feel uncomfortable receiving any sort of kickback from these recommendations. If the publication and popularization of this work helps interested (or desperate) experimenters to sleep, as it is proving to for people who have tried it, that is all the reward I seek. Although you may know me, others don't. So I think we're much better off if there is no suggestion of ulterior motive.

HSF dosage, rules of thumb
The following guidelines serve to frame the dosages used in this Healthy Sleep Formula. After consulting this section, see the “HSF dosage protocol” section to determine the optimum HSF ingredient dosage for your needs:

• Melatonin: Either use one, 1mg time release melatonin tablet, or none. Not everyone may need to supplement their body's natural (endogenous) melatonin production, but many people will need it. This Formula's 1mg dosage is close to normal human physiological levels. Studies have shown that long term supplementation at low dosage is safe and that endogenous production is not reduced by long term supplementation. You should start out using a single 1mg tablet nightly. After settling upon the proper dosage of the other two ingredients you may experiment with eliminating the melatonin. If you find that it's unnecessary, though it will do no harm, there's no reason to continue using it.
• Niacinamide: Long term safety studies have demonstrated that niacinamide may be safely supplemented at 3000mg (3g) per day (or night). No one should, or should need to, use more than 3000mg per night (which is quite a powerful dose). Niacinamide is a form of vitamin B3 and is already present in humans. At the higher doses employed by the HSF, it functions as a “GABA receptor agonist” (meaning that it encourages GABA's natural calming and sedating effects) and thus exerts benzodiazepine-like effects without long term adaptation or dependence. Long-acting extended release niacinamide is the most crucial component of the HSF, but its dosage must be tuned to each user's needs.
• Oleamide: The HSF employs oleamide in doses ranging from zero to 1000mg (1g). It is the “amide” form of oleic acid, which gets its name from being the most prominent fatty acid in olives. It was discovered and isolated by Scripps Research Institute while studying the changes in feline brain chemistry brought about by sleep deprivation. These researchers discovered that oleamide makes cats, and humans, sleepy. Once they knew what to look for it was also found in human cerebral spinal fluid and functions as a natural (endogenous) safe and gentle sedative. Because its effects are both fast acting and long lasting, it has the dual role in the HSF of helping to both initiate and maintain sleep. However, people who initially fall asleep for a least several hours (by which time the niacinamide and melatonin will have taken effect) may not need oleamide if only the first two ingredients are sufficient.

How to determine the HSF dosage that's optimal for you
It would be so much simpler if the same HSF prescription was optimal for everyone. But in this regard our growing base of experience is demonstrating just how different we each are. My own insomnia is extremely stubborn and highly resistant to external influence. So I need to take the maximum dosage of each ingredient: 1mg Melatonin, 3000mg (two of the 1500mg Source Naturals niacinamide) and 1000mg of oleamide (which is 20 level “microscoops”). But that dosage would be excessive for most people, leaving them with an “HSF hangover” the following day. My best friend's insomnia is identical to mine in severity, and it successfully resisted all interventions prior to this one. But his metabolism is much more sensitive than mine, so he just “nibbles” a piece of one niacinamide tablet, takes one melatonin and 250mg (5 microscoops) of oleamide.

Given that you are a perfect and unique snowflake, you will need to experimentally determine the optimal dosage of each of the three HSF ingredients within the guidelines provided above. The good news is that what's right for a single person appears to be very stable: You will only need to go through his once to determine what's right for you for many years.

The follow step-by-step procedure will guide you through the process of determining how much of what to take for the best results:

Measuring the oleamide powder
Liftmode's oleamide is supplied in either 20 or 50 gram canisters of coarse-grain loose powder. The powder is nearly tasteless and is easy to wash down with a sip of water. If it had to taste like something, we would probably be mild plastic. An evening's dose of the powder can be measured into a shot glass or other small container, then poured and held into your mouth, and washed down with a bit of water. The powder is very coarse, not fine, so handling and swallowing it is easy.

Each canister includes what we call a “microscoop” (because it's very tiny):

One level “microscoop” of oleamide is 50mg of the powder.

Since one level “microscoop” of oleamide is 50mg of the powder, and a minimum effective dose is probably about 250mg, that would be five level microscoops. However, larger doses are typically used (I use 1000mg, which would be 20 of the microscoops.) But measuring out that many scoops would quickly become tedious. So you may wish to use larger standard size measuring teaspoons instead. They are readily available from Amazon and elsewhere online, and you may already have some on hand. The approximate weight per measure of oleamide powder is provided in this table:

The exact dosage is arbitrary, of course. You only need to be able to conveniently approximate the same dose on successive nights.

Initial daytime tests of this Niacinamide and this Melatonin
Although niacinamide and melatonin have very long histories of safe use by millions of people over more than 50 years, everyone's body and starting condition is different. So everyone's reaction will be different. Before taking these together at night, it would be prudent to try each one by itself in the morning while you will be awake. Melatonin should not normally be taken during the day, but once won't disturb anything. Some people have noted that melatonin gives them a headache. This time-release version, at 1mg, should be very gentle, and the niacinamide by itself should be mildly relaxing but not sedative without the melatonin, especially at a lower dosage. You simply want to double-check that you won't have any adverse reaction late at night, so a quick daytime test makes sense. Especially if your body does tends to be highly sensitive to additives.

The idea here is to make sure you don't have any sort of “paradoxical” negative reaction to either of these supplements. If you are going to, finding out during daylight will be much less inconvenient. This is overly cautious since these are both very tame supplements, and this is likely unnecessary. But if these supplements are new to you it makes sense to proceed with a bit of caution.

The physiology of wakefulness and sleep
Waking and sleeping are all about cycles of competing pressures.

• Throughout our waking day, the chemical adenosine gradually accumulates in our brain's neural tissues, serving to make us sleepy. Caffeine induces (and can extend) wakefulness not only by being a general stimulant, but also by directly blocking adenosine's increasing sleep pressure.
• When properly synchronized, the amount of the stress hormone cortisol rises in the very early morning hours to awaken us, it reaches its peak concentration shortly after we have awoken, then gradually diminishes throughout the day, reaching a minimum before midnight, reducing vigilance and encouraging sleep.
• Our pineal gland's production of melatonin, the nocturnal hormone, is blocked during daylight hours while our optic nerves are sensing light at the blue end of the spectrum. After several hours of darkness, and especially lack of blue spectrum light, our brain's melatonin level rises and works to encourage sleep.
• The wakefulness-promoting neurotransmitter, histamine, rises in the morning, remains high throughout the day, and drops off toward the end of the day as night approaches.

What goes wrong?
As we age, some peoples' melatonin-producing pineal glands become calcified. This reduces evening melatonin production and the gentle sedation it is meant to provide. Some peoples' physiological responses to the daily stresses inherent in the world we have created exhaust their adrenal glands, pushing their cortisol out of its normal “low at night” rhythm. And if a person's histamine level fails to drop in the evening, a state of heightened wakefulness can stubbornly remain, making sleep onset difficult or impossible. The evening use of artificial light sources with high blue light content such as televisions, computers, smartphones, tablets, and the increasing move away from less energy efficient yellow incandescent lighting to high blue content LEDs, conspire to keep us awake, alert and agitated. And, finally, all of the cycles described above are inherently gentle and gradual. The design of our metabolism suggests a much more relaxed and slow pace. Yet in our rush to cram as much into each day as possible, many people expect to fall asleep immediately, on command, after being keyed up and excited by an action packed movie which was stimulating their minds and washing their optic nerves in daylight. Our poor brains have no idea what's going on.

Once asleep, restorative processes begin to work. The previous day's accumulated adenosine, which had built-up to make us sleepy, starts being metabolized and removed in preparation for the following morning. Cortisol, which had (hopefully) hit bottom in the late evening, begins its slow daily rise (hopefully not too soon). Ideally, approximately eight hours after going to sleep the increasing pressures of wakefulness will outweigh the diminishing pressures to sleep and we will gently return to consciousness after a deeply refreshing long night's sleep. But if the nocturnal sleeping pressures lack strength or diminish too soon, or the natural waking pressures are too pronounced, our eyes may open after many fewer than the optimal eight hours.

The Original HSF Mechanism of Operation
The first-generation HSF was very instructive. It used an array of amino acids and melatonin to calm and relax its user's brain by gently reducing neural stimulation. While it was successful for many people, it was not successful for everyone. It was built around and largely dependent upon the original decades old formulation of “Seriphos”, the brand name for a phosphatidylserine substrate precursor which worked in concert with several of the formula's other ingredients. The formula was critically wounded when Seriphos was reformulated and lost most of its strength. And speaking of “the other ingredients,” the first generation formula required the use of six different supplements, several which were not inexpensive. And for some people, multiples of some supplements were needed to obtain sufficient strength.

The other problem we had was with effect duration. Our bodies are quite efficient and most ingested substances will be processed within a few hours. A stomach full of food will generally delay this, but only perhaps for an additional hour. So, around the middle of the night, when the pressures to keep us asleep have been diminishing for hours, and we most need the Formula's calming effects, most of it will be leaving our brains and bodies, either excreted in urine or metabolized by our livers into some other less useful substance. For many people, the “launch” was effective enough to carry them through the night, but I wanted something more effective.

HSF v2 Mechanism of Operation
The primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in our brains is known as GABA, which is an abbreviation for gamma-Aminobutyric Acid. The 1st-generation HSF included GABA itself, which the phosphatidylserine derived from Seriphos escorted across the blood brain barrier. And the 1st-gen HSF amino acids taurine and l-theanine both encourage the action of GABA through differing mechanisms. An effective healthy sleep formula is one which, without developing tolerance or dependence and using individually healthful dietary supplements, can increase the inhibitory, anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) and sedative effects of GABA only during the night, to help its user sleep, but leaving them awake and alert in the morning. A future edition of this page will describe and diagram the molecular mechanisms by which this 2nd-generation HSF accomplishes this. In the meantime, the short version is:

• GABA neurotransmitter molecules are emitted in bursts from presynaptic (upstream/sending) synapses when their GABAergic neurons fire.
• GABA receptors reside in the post-synaptic (downstream/receiving) plasma membrane of neurons. They consist of a packed cluster of five elongated proteins which all poke though the cell's membrane wall to appear on both sides. When molecules of GABA dock onto the external side of GABA receptor sites, a central ion-pump channel opens to pump negatively-charged chloride ions from the extra-cellular (outside) fluid into the receiving neuron. This increased negative ionic charge raises the firing threshold of its neuron, “hyperpolarizing” it, and causing it to be less likely to fire and thus to fire less often. Fewer neuron firings results in overall lower brain activity, reduced anxiety, increased sedation, and a greater ability to sleep.

• Melatonin has the effect of increasing the sensitivity of the GABA receptors to the nearby presence of GABA neurotransmitter molecules. Carefully conducted studies through the years have shown that in addition to triggering its own MT1 and MT2 melatonin receptors, melatonin also increases the rate at which GABA receptors are triggered without any change in the concentration of extracellular GABA.
• Niacinamide has the effect of increasing the number of negatively-charged chloride ions pumped into its neuron by any triggered GABA receptor. Essentially, niacinamide makes each GABA triggering event significantly more potent, and thus more inhibitory and relaxing.

In my pre-release experiments, neither works without the other. But when both are taken together, and without any increase in the absolute amount of GABA present, melatonin increases the GABA receptors' opening rate while niacinamide increases the effect of every GABA receptor opening. And because both the melatonin and niacinamide are delivered in extended time-release tablets, this effect endures throughout the night to help us remain asleep.

Pleasant Dreams!