Sleeps/Naps Affecting Your Tinnitus? Could It Possibly Be Due to REM Sleep Rebound? Need Feedback

I have a new idea about tinnitus and sleep but I will need feedback. As you all know I have written on sleep cycles before but I was missing a key bit of information. REM sleep rebound.

A little refresher on the sleep cycles: There are 5 stages of sleep. 4 NREM stages (labeled 1-4) and 1 REM stage of sleep. If you need to learn more, please look it up in an encyclopedia. It is very interesting.

I'm wondering if part of the problem with people who can wake up with low or loud T based on their sleep is due to REM sleep and REM rebound. REM rebound is caused when REM is suppressed during sleep. According to Wikipedia:

"REM rebound is the lengthening and increasing frequency and depth of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep which occurs after periods of sleep deprivation. When people have been prevented from experiencing REM, they take less time than usual to attain the REM state."

Many drugs have an effect on REM sleep, for example anti-depressants:

REM suppression includes elevated REM latency, reduced REM time, and decreased REM density. (Source 2)

However, when you withdraw from anti-depressants, notice what happens:

Withdrawal of REM-suppressing antidepressants is followed by REM rebound. During REM rebound, REM latency is shortened, and REM time and REM density are elevated. All these variables exceed baseline values. In healthy volunteers who were treated with antidepressants for 2 weeks, the REM rebound persisted 1 week after cessation. (Source 2)

It seems that once a body's REM sleep gets disturbed it can take a while to "catch up". In the above example, for 2 weeks on an anti-depressant, it took 1 week for the rebound effect to go away.

I would assume the REM supression would depend on the type of drug, the dosage, when it was taken (due to half life and peak plasma times), and other medication and physical characteristics of a person. In addition, how much sleep that person receives. I found the following example graphic that shows a tricyclic anti-depressant on the right and another one the left and how they affect REM sleep cycles.


(Source 2)

If you look at day 2, you will see that the body does not reach REM sleep til after 4 and a half hours. My question is, if someone took that drug and on day 2, slept 4 hours and woke up with low T, could it possibly be due to the suppression of REM sleep? Secondly, if someone took a nap, after that 4 hours, would it be easier for the body to wake up with louder T due to entering REM? What if the reverse were true and REM sleep lowered tinnitus?

Also, is it possible that if someone is weening off a drug, part of the increase could be due to REM rebound? Let me know what you think?

Source 2-
https://www.dovepress.com/sleep-ele...depression-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-CPT

 

I think a whole mess of things happen when withdrawing from medications including increased glutamate which may even be responsible for the REM rebound. I do know one supplement that aside from melatonin which helps with proper REM and that's TA-65. I wrote another post on it. It might be a good way to test the theory.

 

My sleep was brutal while on meds and it was even more difficult off it. It took me a very LONG time to get things kinda going again. I will say this much, having a nap or some sleep always helps with my tinnitus

 

I personally think that REM sleep for me, means I wake up with lower tinnitus.
I can honestly say that a nap or if I am woken out of my sleep by my babies before I reach REM, I'm almost guaranteed to have a spike.
I certainly think this is an interesting, plausible theory, and for a lot of people holds true.
I agree with the others, yes absolutely possible that REM rebound could be part of the reason for increased tinnitus when weaning off the drug.

I've said it before I think, but I love reading your posts and research! Very thorough and well thought out.

 

Thanks Samantha! Yeah, I would assume that for some people REM sleep might be good and for others might be bad. In others, it may have no effect at all. Tinnitus is tricky to figure out. Hopefully, us pooling information on here can help others find more or create more accurate treatment.

 

Hi Jason, I am bastiaan from the Netherlands. I have intermittend Tinnitus for 7 years now. I have mostly 4 or 5 bad days and 3 or 2 good days where the noise is almost not there. Here is the point : My bad days are ALWAYS activated in my sleep. I can go to bed after my good days and wake up, say 4 o clock , to go to the toilet and it is still QUIET in my head. Then i fall asleep and ( i get up early ) I awake at 5 o clock ! and the bad cycle starts again for a couple of days . So the change takes place in ONE HOUR or something !.and i know i dream a lot on the end of the night. strange hey ? In the past i have used cannabis for the night and when you do that for a long time ,you don t dream anymore. when you stop using cannabis the dreams come back rapidly and vivid. there is certainly a connection between cannabis ,sleeping pills,antidepressiva etc. and sleep and tinnitus.. greetings Bastiaan

 

Sleep, whether a full nights sleep or a nap, always lowers my T.

Then again, my naps are usually 1-2 hours long, I don't understand 20-30 minute naps

 

I don't get much sleep so i doubt i get much REM sleep and my T is always disgusting, except for the days when it's abysmal.