I said I’d tell you about the first few nights without Tylenol PM. I wasn’t lying when I said it wasn’t pretty.
When it came to deleting it, I thought it would be easy…
My plan was lights out at my usual time, 9-ish. So far so good. Anxiety level low.
10 PM: Box breathing. Anxiety rises.
11 PM: Cursing, 3 Boiron’s homeopathic sleep tablets. Check room temp, change sides of the bed, speak to the cat, yell at my brain to shut up.
Midnight: Maximal frustration, and I reach for a Tylenol PM.
Within minutes, I began to drift off to sleep, which served to relieve me of my shame and my frustration.
I wake up feeling something like rested, full of renewed energy to try again.
That night, facing an early wake-up call, I broke down and took the Tylenol at 11.
Not looking for my own personal Groundhog Day, I changed the routine. Take the homeopathics when I hit the pillow, add a little melatonin, and read til I’m sleepy.
On night 3, I fell asleep around 10:30. Not great, but better.
Enemy #1: The anxiety loop. The worry about not sleeping was preventing sleep.
And the worry was cloaking a fear; what if I never get my fully functioning memory back? What if all of the various opioids and anesthesia kicked me into an older, less present, less capable me?
Enemy #2: My Oura ring. Or rather, my reliance on it to tell me how I slept, aka how I should feel. 10 minutes of deep sleep, 30 minutes of REM on average since stopping the Tylenol. Looking at my stats first thing in the morning to see those abysmal numbers was just dumb.
An otherwise helpful tool weaponized by anxiety. I took it off until I found my sleep groove.
Gritting through it wasn’t a strategy. I needed to actually give my brain something to work with. I knew I didn’t want an expensive sleep supplement with a long list of ingredients. So I went with L-Theanine and Magnesium glycinate. I ditched the homeopathic sleep aids because they take a long time to kick in, and that was adding more anxiety.
L-theanine is not a sedative. A randomized placebo-controlled trial found that 200mg produced measurable alpha brain wave activity and reduced cortisol within an hour. It works by reducing the anxiety that prevents sleep, not by forcing sleep. The research is promising, but large-scale human trials are still limited. My experience is not a recommendation or promise that it will work for someone else.
What I experienced that first night with my new supplements was magical. I fell asleep within 30 minutes of turning off my light and didn’t wake up until seven hours later.
You may have heard me shouting for joy from here. Not because I believed everything was back to normal, but because I knew I was on the right path.
Sleep was one battle. My brain was another.
Getting the sleep foundation right was necessary, but it wasn’t enough. The neuroinflammation from surgery and opioids doesn’t resolve on its own just because you’re sleeping better. I needed to give my brain the raw materials to actually repair.
I went looking for what the science actually supports.
Citicoline was the first addition. It directly supports acetylcholine production — the same neurotransmitter that diphenhydramine was blocking every night. Think of it as restocking the supply chain, my brain needed to recover.
High-DHA omega-3s came next. My brain is roughly 60% fat, and neuroinflammation depletes what it needs most. This isn’t a sexy supplement, but the evidence is solid.
Lion’s Mane is the one nootropic with legitimate emerging research behind it. It stimulates Nerve Growth Factor — actual neurological repair, not marketing language. I’ve written about medicinal mushrooms before, if you want to go deeper on this one.
Magnesium L-threonate is the only form of magnesium shown to meaningfully cross the blood-brain barrier. Most magnesium supplements don’t get there. This one does.
Four weeks in, word retrieval has improved, I haven’t left anything on the stove to burn, and I’m not second-guessing myself as I go through my day.
I’ve made up with my Oura ring. The numbers confirm what I already feel — I’m sleeping, really sleeping, and my brain is getting what it needs to come back online.
Coming through this reminded me how easily this could have gone another way — not just physically but psychologically. Some might accept the fog as their new normal. I wasn’t willing to do that.
Memory improved. Sleep improved. I’m feeling more like myself every day.
Western medicine gave me the framework — POCD is real and documented. What it didn’t tell me was that the Tylenol PM on my nightstand was making it worse every night. That connection came from trusting my gut and knowing where to look.
What conventional healthcare didn’t give me was a warning or a way forward. That’s not unusual. Which is exactly why I’m writing this.
Up next, the sleep deep dive.
In my Power of 5 email series, I spend a lot of time on sleep. Sleep science has expanded significantly in the past year. What most people don’t know — including me until recently — is how much damage common sleep aids, both OTC and prescription, can do over time.
The good news: a new category called Orexin Receptor Antagonists is showing real promise — safer, less habit-forming, and worth knowing about.
Be well til next time,
Greg
