In an earlier post, Alexandra Carmichael of CureTogether noted that 4000 IU/day Vitamin D3 gave her better results than 2000 IU/day. Her mood was better and her sleep was better. But she’d only taken the larger dose once.
She recently sent me an update:
Since I last wrote to you [8 days earlier], I’ve been taking 4000-6000 IU Vitamin D3, and I can report that it’s NOT having a positive effect on my sleep, but it is balancing my mood significantly, helping me to handle normally overwhelming situations with much more ease, and avoiding mood extremes. This is a wonderful thing!
Anyway, just wanted to let you know I don’t fit the sleep-improvement set — I still wake up super easily in the night. Falling asleep is easy, but I attribute that to the blue blocker glasses. Also, 4000 IU is much better at balancing my mood than 2000 IU (no noticeable effect) or 6000 IU (feelings of intensity or overwhelm increase).
If vitamin D3 tricks the body into thinking it’s getting a lot of sunlight, unless someone is seeking to reset their circadian rhythm (for example when traveling) it seems to me that it would be best to take it in the afternoon, or, ideally, small doses throughout the day, with the strongest concentration around during the brightest times of the day.
I think the goal is to increase the amplitude of your circadian rhythm so that you will be more awake during the day and more asleep during the night. Perhaps morning sunlight has more effect on circadian amplitude than sunlight later in the day. I’ve taken D3 at various times in the morning; around 10 am the effect seemed to go away, although I’m not sure of that.
I have bipolar disorder that has been well-controlled for some time now. I recently had an episode of hypomania that seems to have been triggered by upping my morning dose of vitamin D to 5000 IU for several days. I used to take 2000 IU, and I have taken 4000 IU without incident, so 4000 IU may be my sweet spot – or at the very least upper limit – as well. The hypomania lasted longer than what is typical for me and it was not followed by depression, despite the fact that I drank a lot of alcohol (binging on alcohol has always immediately ended a hypomanic episode in the past for me, but would also always cause debilitating depression).
It’s great that this blog is highlighting the potential benefits of taking vitamin D, but I really wish I had been more careful with this supplement. It seems obvious that a person with BPD should be cautious with anything that effects mood and circadian rhythm, but since my mood has been a non-issue for some time now and I no longer take handfuls of medication, I’ve stopped thinking of myself as bipolar (as stupid as that sounds). This was definitely a wake-up call.