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Melatonin

gwern.net

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Re: Melatonin

#61

Post by thuzarsky »

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #25
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #18

The problem with a lack of FDA regulation is that there is no guarantee on what you are taking. The freshness of the product and the veracity of what's in the pills will always be suspect to me. If I could trust where I get my melatonin from, I would gladly take it. But I've learned too much about how terrible this industry is.

I don't trust many, but I do trust Nature's Way, Now Foods, and Jarrows. They do proper batching and testing.

I'd also strongly recommend the Trader Joe's brand. I've been using melatonin for a couple of years and haven't found anything that has been as consistently effective.

Re: Melatonin

#62

Post by thebooktocome »

pesenti wrote: post #51

Melatonin is a clear-cut Good Thing. The gains I have laid out are large enough I consider it irrational for someone not to use it. I consider it irrational for someone to believe that a limited number of hand-selected studies can give you absolute confidence.

First, it's not a "limited number of hand-selected studies." The Brzezinski meta-study ( http://www.gwern.net/docs/melatonin/2005-brzezinski.pdf ) alone covered 17 studies and 284 participants. There's even a clear, well-documented causal mechanism, which can't be said for most of the supplement industry.

Even if it were a limited number of studies, gwern's not going for "absolute confidence". (Indeed, requiring "absolute confidence" before attempting a thing is irrational by the following sentence.) Irrational here means doing something with expected value less than zero. If you're a person living in an industrialized society with ready access to electrical lighting -- the possible gains are too large to be balanced out by the time wasted trying it. That's what gwern's saying.

Re: Melatonin

#63

Post by Lost_BiomedE »

jtheory wrote: post #14

I don't have personal experience with it; but my sleep schedule is horrible (I tend to stay up to 5am on alternate nights), so I may give it a try to enforce a normal bedtime, and kick the procrastination monster down a bit (if I don't have the option of doing the unpleasant work at 2am, it's far easier to force myself to do it during normal hours). But: see here, this is very relevant: http://hpmor.com/notes/98/ Sea…

This is how I do it as well. I use 300 microgram time released at sunset. Then a 1000 microgram instant release before bed. The 1000 microgram is not needed for me to get good sleep, but it puts my dosage at where body temp drops can be seen.

Re: Melatonin

#64

Post by thebooktocome »

da02 wrote: post #7

Why didn't you mention about the effects of a calcified pineal gland resulting from a Vitamin D and magnesium deficiency? Those are very common among the older folk, resulting in poor sleep quality, poor immune system, even increased chance of heart attacks.

It's an article on melatonin. Vitamin D and magnesium are discussed elsewhere ( http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#vitamin-d , http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#magnesium ), but gwern's focus isn't on old people because he's not an old person, so it's harder to self-experiment on them.

Re: Melatonin

#65

Post by desigooner »

thuzarsky wrote: post #61
Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust many, but I do trust Nature's Way, Now Foods, and Jarrows. They do proper batching and testing.

I'd also strongly recommend the Trader Joe's brand. I've been using melatonin for a couple of years and haven't found anything that has been as consistently effective.

I've heard many of TJs supplements are white labelled Nature's way products

Re: Melatonin

#66

Post by porker »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #48

I've been using melatonin for years every night. As a person that has extreme obstructive sleep apnea, I credit melatonin with providing me a modicum of restful sleep for the years I didn't use a CPAP. Now that I have one, melatonin helps improve my "normal" sleep patterns. Anecdotaly, I find melatonin usage helps my brain rewire itself every night. My belief is that increases the number of connections and associatio…

> But not all of it. Melatonin is one of the 2 or 3 supplements I use that I believe really make a huge and immediately perceivable difference.

What would the other 2 or 3 be? I've found Vitamin D (taken as a liquid) to be one.

Re: Melatonin

#67

Post by rfreytag »

The pharmacokinetics of pill-form melatonin may be responsible for the uneven-, or late-onset and morning grogginess. Others here have reported that and I experienced it as well.

I have yet to see others mentioning the following answer so ...

My doctor advised using sprayed liquid melatonin (purchased at Whole Foods). 1-2 sprays under the tongue and held there for 30 seconds, then washed throughout the mouth (a highly vascularized area) and swallowed, transports the hormone consistently so that sleep is compelled in 1 to 1.5 hours with no morning grogginess.

Re: Melatonin

#68

Post by MikeCapone »

I take 1.5 mg every night before going to bed. It has solved pretty much all my sleep problems, and allows me to control my sleeping schedule much more easily (ie. on weekdays I go to bed at 12:15 AM, but on weekends I usually go to bed at 3 AM. I have no problem re-transitioning back to weekday schedule now, but I used to).

Re: Melatonin

#69

Post by MikeCapone »

I take 1.5 mg every night before going to bed. It has solved pretty much all my sleep problems, and allows me to control my sleeping schedule much more easily (ie. on weekdays I go to bed at 12:15 AM, but on weekends I usually go to bed at 3 AM. I have no problem re-transitioning back to weekday schedule now, but I used to).

Re: Melatonin

#70

Post by simpsond »

I experienced a strange side effect when experimenting with melatonin: My vision degraded as if I was having a migraine. I experienced tunnel vision and colorful artifacts without the headache. I can't say with 100% certainty that melatonin was the cause, but there was a correlation... and I have not experienced the problem since I stopped taking it.
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