How to use Glycine for Sleep

Glycine For Sleep - Dosage & Side Effects

You might have heard of people touting the supplement “glycine” for sleep. But does it help and how much do you need to take to get results? Let’s find out.

Why is Glycine?

Glycine is generally considered an EAA (essential amino acid) for human productivity and consumption. Recommendations are around 12g/day although many people get most of that from food sources.

Glycine Structure

Glycine is the simplest stable amino acid. It’s simlpy an amino acid with a hyrogen atom. It’s a very, very common component of collagen.

Benefits of Glycine

Glycine has several generalized benefits including

  • Improved insulin response
  • Improved symptoms of schizophrenia

However, the primary interest in glycine revolves around sleep and the brain. There, glycine has been shown to:

  • Improve cognitive function
  • Decrease self-reported fatigue
  • Improve sleep quality

But how does that happen? Let’s dive in.

Glycine for Sleep

Glycine seems to be particularly beneficial and helpful for sleep.

Mechanisms of Action for Glycine

Glycine seems to lower core body temperature - a trait associated with better overall sleep quality.

Glycine also helps activate the NMDA receptor (N-methly-D-asparatate) receptor in the brain. This is believed to be the reason for both the improvement in cognition and sleep quality over time.

The studies also seem to back this up.

Glycine seem to help reduce fatigue and improve observed sleep quality (the testing here was self reported).

A similar dosage was tested and reported to have improved sleep and faster TTS (time to sleep).

Fatigue is noticeably lowered when taking glycine (3g), but that effect diminishes over time suggesting that this may be a function of prior deficiency. Performance tasks were still positively correlated.

The main issues with the studies were the self-reported nature of them, but they do seem promising.

Typical dosages of glycine for sleep range around 3g, but can range up to 5g. These are the typical dosages administered during research.

Magnesium & Glycine (Magnesium Glycinate / Bisglycinate)

If you’ve heard of glycine in relation to magnesium it’s probably because of magnesium bisglycinate (or magnesium glycinate). This is magnesium compound with a two molecules (hence the bis)

The Impossible Guide to Magnesium Bisglycinate / Magnesium Glycinate

Foods Containing Glycine

  • Meat
  • Eggs
  • Soybeans
  • Lentils
  • Dairy

The Best Glycine Supplement

We currently don’t have a glycine supplement recommendation.

Side Effects from Glycine

Because it’s an amino acid - if you take too much glycine - you’re not likely to have anything bad happen. You might have stomach discomfort as your body gets rid of the excess. This is usually in substantially large dosages however (9g+).

Other In Depth Supplement Guides

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