Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018) • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

> What is the right dose of melatonin? 0.3 mg. "But my local drugstore sells 10 mg pills!..."

The article goes into depth about debates about the right dose. What I was told is that you just have to experiment yourself.

I've personally found for myself, when I have to shift my bedtime/schedule a few hours earlier:

- The 3 mg tablets (smallest I could find at my drugstore) get me to sleep no problem... but them I'm groggy the next day until late afternoon. The melatonin is clearly still in my system, the whole day I just want to nap. So way too much

- The supposedly "correct" 0.3 mg (1/10th of a tablet) gets me to sleep basically just as well... but then I wake up constantly throughout the night and sleep really lightly. I have to assume the melatonin wears off, and I don't have enough naturally produced to fully compensate

- A quarter-tablet (0.75 mg) is just right. Sleep like a log, but not groggy in the morning.

The right dose for you may be different, but I hope that maybe helps people identify the signs of too much or too little. And it's not too hard to cut the tablets as well with just a paring knife or something.

I've also heard that the actual strength of drugstore melatonin tablets is not necessarily even remotely consistent across brands, I don't know if that's true or not. But it might be a good reason, once you've determined your optimal dose with a brand, to stick to it.

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

#152

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

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.…

5 hours is almost certainly not enough, and plenty of people need more than 8 hours, so 9 hours is probably what you need.

Are you able to go back to sleep after 5 hours if you try?

For a lot of people anxiety is the culprit -- for some people it prevents them from falling asleep, for others it wakes them up early. If anxiety is coming and going in your life, whether on a daily or weekly basis, that might be the explanation for the 5-hour nights.

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

#153

Post by Benjaminyyy » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

I read this sst post when it originally came out and decided to experiment with taking 0.3mg melatonin every evening. I started to get heart flutters that literally lasted all day. Stopped as soon as I stopped taking melatonin.

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

#154

Post by krageon » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 10:05 AM UTC

void_mint wrote: post #145

krageon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-medication for quality of life is broadly all you have if you don't want to be put on the hefty big guns immediately. The alternative to the big guns is being told that there's nothing wrong with you. As such, saying "don't self-medicate" is extremely unproductive and only serves to push such practices out of view.

> As such, saying "don't self-medicate" is extremely unproductive and only serves to push such practices out of view. Sure, this is definitely a strawman you could make. Here in reality I suggested that those struggling with MH conditions shouldn't self medicate.

And that's exactly what I was responding to. Where exactly is the strawman?

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

#155

Post by arthur2e5 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

joelrunyon wrote: post #47

mettamage wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you get l-theanine out of tea or is that infeasible?

Totally feasible depending on the dosage you're looking for. You just may end up drinking a decent amount of tea (which some people don't love doing before bed).

To add, theanine extraction increases with the time you steep the tea, but so does the caffeine content…

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

#156

Post by glanard_frugner » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 12:34 AM UTC

polskibus wrote: post #75

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…

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?

you can see this with pot edibles, if you take one on an empty stomach it takes forever to kick in and sometimes doesn’t work very well, but if you eat the same one after a large fatty meal it will kick in fast and strong