Fish Oil and Sleep

Does anyone have experience with fish oil causing sleep issues?

I added 1290mg of fish oil about 10 days ago. It really helped lift the foggy brain feeling, but now I've noticed my sleep pattern is all out of whack. I am sleeping 4 or 5 hours when I usually need at least 7 or 8.

I started using light therapy in the mornings about a month ago and I take a Vitamin D3 supplement. We were trying that out to see if it helped with depressive symptoms.

I take fish oil and have insomnia but I don't know if there is a correlation. Have you tried not taking the fish oil to see if your sleep improves?

I forgot to take it this morning...not on purpose. I was rushed and it slipped my mind. We'll see how sleep goes tonight.

Hope you and I get some good sleep tonight.

I'm interested to see how this goes. I have been taking fish oil for several years & have sleep issues. But the sleep issues are newer than the fish oil. I take it right before I go to bed.

My t told me to stop taking the fish oil when I had racing thoughts. The insomnia did go away, but I also stopped my light therapy at the same time (I was down and not being too good about self-care). Now I am beginning to wonder if the racing thoughts actually came from too much light therapy. I took a 4 day break from light therapy and when I started back up the racing thoughts were back stronger than before. I see her on Thurs and am hoping we can give the fish oil another try.

Did you reintroduce the fish oil?

My session didn't really go as I hoped and I never got a chance to ask about it. So rather than upset the apple cart more than I think I already did in my session, I am waiting until I see her in two weeks to ask.

Fish may have earned its reputation as “brain food” because some people eat fish to help with depression, psychosis, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Alzheimer’s disease, and other thinking disorders. [http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supple...ame=FISH%20OIL]

O_O Does this help?

I'm having the same issue. I've been taking quite a bit of fish oil, as well as seriously increasing the amount of fish I eat for the last two weeks. I have had insomnia coming on for almost a week, getting increasingly worse until the night before last when I woke at 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep.

Last night I didn't take any and slept like a rock. I did take some in the morning yesterday.

I googled it and apparently some people get insomnia and anxiety with fish oil. I'm going to continue taking a small amount in the morning for a while longer, but my long-term goal is to get the omega 3's from my diet - fish, leafy greens, flax seed, etc. - and decrease the omega 6's I'm consuming.

have you tried counting fish to get back to sleep

I haven't, but it's amusing to me that I've taken up swimming at about the same time I started eating lots of fish. It's like first I invade their world, then I start eating them.

I ran across something interesting while trying to research fish oil. It kind of got me speculating. This is just a hypothesis of mine based on the following information.

Apparently fish oil oxidizes easily. They know this from measuring an organic compound called malondialdehyde in the urine of people taking fish oil. The fix is an antioxidant, vitamin E.

At least one study correlates insomnia with malondialdehyde (and other signs of oxidative stress). These researchers seem to conclude that the lack of sleep is leading to oxidative stress. But what if it's the reverse: increased oxidative stress is leading to sleep problems? That would explain why fish oil capsules were causing me insomnia.

Maybe when people get their fish oil from diet (i.e., they eat fish) rather than taking capsules, they're less likely to have this sleep issue because they're getting other necessary nutrients (antioxidants) from the rest of the fish and from other foods they're eating with the fish. Another reason taking supplements isn't an adequate substitute for a healthy diet?

I may get some vitamin E and test my theory.

BTW, malondialdehyde also seems to be associated with other neuropsychiatric nasties - like the negative symptoms of sz. Maybe this is why my son seems to have gotten worse rather than better since starting fish oil? (You'll have to follow the link to the study and check out the Mesh headings to see the mention of malondialdehyde. It's not mentioned in the abstract.)

I was under the assumption that supplemental Vitamin E wasn't exactly good for you. Am I way off base here?

But if supplemental Vitamin E is indeed okay then I just might look into it as well to see if it also helps with insomnia because I'm still experiencing it on Ambien CR and 6mg of melatonin. My issue with insomnia is not with falling asleep but with waking up real early after being in bed only 4 or 5 hours. Once I wake up, trying to get back to sleep is futile.

Costello, keep us posted of your Vitamin E experiment. When do you think you'll start? Wishing you loads of luck!

I'll start taking vitamin E tonight. We'll see if it helps. I started my son taking five antioxidants last night because he's decompensating. Doesn't seem to be helping him - but his problems are more serious that insomnia, I'm afraid.

I've been taking 800 IU of vitamin E along with the fish oil for a bit over a week now. I haven't had insomnia during that time, but I've also been taking the fish oil in the morning rather than the night, so I'm not sure what's making the difference.

I'm glad you're sleeping better.

I guess to see which is doing what I would eliminate the vitamin E for at least a week, being that it's a fat soluble vitamin, to see if your insomnia returns. It could be that by taking fish oil (another fat soluble vitamin) in the morning is early enough not to cause insomnia. But if by a weeks time your insomnia kicks back in then reintroduce vitamin E to see if that takes care of it. By then you should know which is doing what.

Keep us posted!

Ugh! Slept badly last night, but don't think it was insomnia per se.

Woke at 2 - I think because my son had left on a light which was shining into my bedroom. I got up to turn it off, and I probably would have been able to get back into bed and go right back to sleep, but I found that my son was wide awake and hadn't been able to get to sleep at all that night. Not feeling sleepy at all. That worried me because his episodes often start with severe persistent insomnia. So I sat up with him for an hour or so. I was able to get back to sleep fairly easily once I returned to bed.

Not sure if that was insomnia or not. I think not. Even though I didn't feel sleepy while I was talking to my son - wide awake, in fact - I was woken by something in my environment and I could get back to sleep when I wanted to.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that taking an antioxidant with fish oil is a good idea - even if you don't have insomnia. I just read this morning, for example, that fish oil consumption tends to lower vitamin E levels for some unknown reason. Possibly it's depleted because of the need to deal with oxidative stress from the fatty acid peroxidation?

Costello, how much fish oil as well as vitamin E are you taking?

I take 2,126mg of molecularly distilled fish oil (EPA 800mg; DHA 400mg). I'm thinking if vitamin E ends up working for you perhaps it could work for me too, but I don't know of a dosage to start. I've found that getting 9 hours of sleep is optimal for me but for the most part I don't always get that, but somewhere between 5-8 hours a night. BTW, I'm no longer relying on melatonin to maintain my sleep but just to take it prophylactically being that melatonin declines with age (I'm 49). Initially, it seemed to have worked but have come to the conclusion that it was just a placebo effect so I'm back to square one with looking for ways of getting a good night's sleep. The other option for me (which I'm not too keen on) is increasing my antipsychotic. I believe I'm fairly stable - just that my sleep really sucks.

I'm glad you asked. I went to get the exact numbers off the bottle for you, and I see that my son bought the wrong thing this time. He got a combo fish oil and vitamin D which includes a much lower dose of EPA/DHA than the other one I was using. His pdoc wanted him to take at least 1000 mg EPA. The product I was buying had something like 1200 mg to 1400 mg EPA (plus DHA too, but I can't even ballpark that number for you). The product my son picked up has 720 mg total of both EPA and DHA (no breakdown given on how much of each). That second product is the one I've been taking with this vitamin E experiment.

This pretty much throws my experiment out the window. I'll buy the other product today and try again to see what happens.

Back to the drawing board!

The fish oil that you'd be taking, is it 1200-1400mg of EPA and DHA combined or is it just for EPA alone? I'm wondering if I can get higher EPA and DHA than I'm already getting.

That was the number for the EPA alone. Since the pdoc was insistant that it contain at least 1000 mg of EPA, I focused on that number only.

I could find that kind at the store yesterday, so I picked up a different kind. The new kind - which I started taking yesterday evening - has about 1300 mgs of EPA in two capsules. (I forgot to check the DHA again. Darn it! I'll let you know about the DHA when I get a chance to check it.)

I'm thinking that if it's going to cause me insomnia, it'll be at least a week or so.

Me too. But the best I can hope for right now is 7 hours. I have to get up at 5 am for work. And I like to spend some time hanging out with my son in the evening, so I'm not usually asleep until 10 pm.

A low-carb diet cured my lifelong insomnia. I don't know if reducing sugar and/or processed carbs might help you?

I'm a bit obsessive about turning off all lights at night and having it as dark as I can possibly get - partly because I can't sleep with lights on, but partly because light suppresses melatonin production. Do you keep your room dark at night? I even cover the face of my clock radio and the little light on my tv converter box.

EPA = 647 x 2 = 1294 mg
DHA = 278 x 2 = 556 mg
Vitamin E = 800 IU

night 2

My room is pretty much dark except for the light on the cable box but it doesn't interfere with me going to sleep. Actually, I view it as a night light. In addition to my dark room I sleep with two sound machines and the whirring of a small fan. I am an extremely light sleeper so they really help mask any noise (people, thunderstorms, etc.) that might occur outside of my room.

I'm not a big carb eater as too many carbs make me not feel well but I do eat carbs in moderation alongside some protein and/or veggies and fruits. For the most part I stay away from sugar and processed foods but every so often I'll eat a couple of cookies. I love cookies but again, not too many. So for me, carbs and processed foods are not a factor in affecting my sleep. I wish I knew what is causing my insomnia as this morning I was up at 5:30am after going to bed at 11:30pm. Who knows.

What is the name brand of the fish oil that you are taking that has a high EPA?