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Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

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Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#131

Post by SirensOfTitan »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #66
yosito wrote: post #55

Melatonin is not like a sleeping pill where more will necessarily make you more drowsy. It is a hormone that signals to your body that it is time to sleep. I can't find it right now, but there was a study of different doses in a large number of people that determined that just 0.2mg was more effective than larger doses for most people. And I've found that's true for me too. When I use melatonin, I use 0.2mg, and I fa…

I use 0.25mg and agree completely. The most annoying part is I can't find any pills less than 1mg so have to do a shitty job of separating them into 4 quarters.

Nootropics Depot sells melatonin in 0.3mg pills.

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#132

Post by gwynplaine »

hoten wrote: post #77
playcache wrote: post #46

I wonder how many folks that are taking Melatonin are coffee drinkers? I spent years trying to crack my sleep issues. Blackout curtains, magnesium malate / citrate, no electronic devices for an hour before bed, CBD oil, even stronger CBD oil, different doses of Melatonin, 5-HTP, valerian extract, sleep apnea tests. It never really significantly occured to me that it would be coffee as I believed I had ruled this out.…

Once I learned the half-life of caffeine is 5-9 hours, I started a rule where I only had caffeinated coffee before noon, and decaf after. Night and day difference (heh) in my sleep quality. Perhaps 12pm didn't work for you because caffeine stuck around longer in your body compared to mine. Did you ever try an earlier cutoff time?

The effect of caffeine is controlled by several genes. One is the CYP1A2 gene that encodes for a liver enzyme critical for the metabolism of caffeine. Another is the AHR gene, which controls when and how the CYP1A2 gene is switched on and off. The general population have variants of these genes and so experience different response to similar doses.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777290/

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#133

Post by novaleaf »

yosito wrote: post #53
lamontcg wrote: post #4

> the correct dose A single correct dose is a myth. The author even sort of notes that with the differences between teenagers, 25 year olds and the elderly. There's also a wide variety of sleep disorders which are touched on in the article. I've suffered with 2.5mg before for long enough to understand that it doesn't work for me, no matter how many studies you have with 95% CL that the dose is much lower. The 5mg tab…

Melatonin is not like a sleeping pill where more will necessarily make you more drowsy. It is a hormone that signals to your body that it is time to sleep. I can't find it right now, but there was a study of different doses in a large number of people that determined that just 0.2mg was more effective than larger doses for most people. And I've found that's true for me too. When I use melatonin, I use 0.2mg, and I fa…

> . If I use a larger dose, I sleep even less well than I would without a supplement.

I stopped taking Melatonin because I noticed, on multiple occasions, that after a week of use my sleeping period became extremely easy to disrupt and resulted in a bad sleep.

I was taking a brand sold in costco, each pill being 5mg.

If I ever decide to try Melatonin agin I will try splitting it into 1/20 parts (0.25mg) and try again

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#134

Post by m4design »

netvarun wrote: post #126

Does anyone have any tips/advice to solve the inverse problem which is waking up on a regular schedule? I mostly follow sleep best practices - no phone before sleep, sleeping at a regular time, meditation, blackout curtains, no caffeine after noon, etc and am able to fall asleep. But however I have a problem with waking up. I either need 9+ hours of sleep or I’m awake in just 5 hours - almost a bimodal distribution.…

I've read (or might be a YT video) that this could be genetic, some people have evolved to wake up at certain hours (something about provide protection to other tribe members).

This is all from my recollection, so you'll have to google around to get the scientific details.

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#136

Post by Tenoke »

headShrinker wrote: post #124
Tenoke wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reference for the variance on them? I doubt it's too big but would prefer to just see what this is based on.

Supplements are an unregulated market so doses can vary wildly, even with melatonin. ‘A study published in 2017 tested 31 different melatonin supplements purchased from pharmacies and grocery stores. For most of the supplements tested, the amount of melatonin in the product did not match what was listed on the label.”’ Melatonin Natural Health Products and Supplements: Presence of Serotonin and Significant Variabilit…

Looks like it was within 10% of described for 71% of supplements (which sounds pretty okay) but there were some big outliers for the rest.

It also suggests the biggest variance was in mixed-supplement pills while pure melatonin pills were mostly within the normal range. Definitely good to know but I wouldn't worry too much if you are just getting basic pure melatonin from a well-known manufacturer.

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#137

Post by overlordalex »

netvarun wrote: post #126

Does anyone have any tips/advice to solve the inverse problem which is waking up on a regular schedule? I mostly follow sleep best practices - no phone before sleep, sleeping at a regular time, meditation, blackout curtains, no caffeine after noon, etc and am able to fall asleep. But however I have a problem with waking up. I either need 9+ hours of sleep or I’m awake in just 5 hours - almost a bimodal distribution.…

As a night owl, I abandoned the consistent bedtime approach and went with a pure consistent waketime. The approach that worked for me was having the same wake time, irrespective of time of year, light levels, or tiredness. There are some days when I'm a zombie because I messed up and stayed up too late, but I treat that as a negative reinforcement learning.

The second step was to immediately get out of bed. No matter how warm it was, or how tired I am, no matter how much my brain protested. I moved my alarm to the other side of the room to facilitate this.

What made it stick for me was giving myself permission to be sleepy after the alarm, but not be sleepy in my bed. Many days I stop my alarm, and immediately go to the couch and give my brain some time to boot up before even going to the bathroom or having breakfast

It might be worth saying I _only_ sleep in bed (no reading, no phone, only sleep) and I make sure to _never_ sleep on the couch

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#138

Post by polskibus »

xvedejas wrote: post #85
polskibus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder if some of the self reported dosage variability for pills comes from differences in absorbtion of pills. Maybe some ppl's stomach acids or bacterial flora destroy particular molecules more or prevents absorption more than in other ppl?

Sublingual tablets are available which result in a much more reliably fast absorption. I recommend them for anyone who wants less variability from their melatonin use.

Any links on why are sublingual better wrt absorption?

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#139

Post by emodendroket »

Tenoke wrote: post #136
headShrinker wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supplements are an unregulated market so doses can vary wildly, even with melatonin. ‘A study published in 2017 tested 31 different melatonin supplements purchased from pharmacies and grocery stores. For most of the supplements tested, the amount of melatonin in the product did not match what was listed on the label.”’ Melatonin Natural Health Products and Supplements: Presence of Serotonin and Significant Variabilit…

Looks like it was within 10% of described for 71% of supplements (which sounds pretty okay) but there were some big outliers for the rest. It also suggests the biggest variance was in mixed-supplement pills while pure melatonin pills were mostly within the normal range. Definitely good to know but I wouldn't worry too much if you are just getting basic pure melatonin from a well-known manufacturer.

30% not even being within 10% seems like a pretty huge amount of variance to me. I guess it is a matter of perspective.

Re: Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)

#140

Post by ppseafield »

novaleaf wrote: post #133
yosito wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Melatonin is not like a sleeping pill where more will necessarily make you more drowsy. It is a hormone that signals to your body that it is time to sleep. I can't find it right now, but there was a study of different doses in a large number of people that determined that just 0.2mg was more effective than larger doses for most people. And I've found that's true for me too. When I use melatonin, I use 0.2mg, and I fa…

> . If I use a larger dose, I sleep even less well than I would without a supplement. I stopped taking Melatonin because I noticed, on multiple occasions, that after a week of use my sleeping period became extremely easy to disrupt and resulted in a bad sleep. I was taking a brand sold in costco, each pill being 5mg. If I ever decide to try Melatonin agin I will try splitting it into 1/20 parts (0.25mg) and try again

There's no guarantee in general that a pill will have its active ingredients distributed evenly throughout. Although they're not often carried in stores, there are versions of melatonin that come in 0.5mg doses.
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