Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Melatonin

gwern.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 229 posts

Re: Melatonin

#181

Post by scotty79 »

Melatonin may help to battle cancer along with chemo: http://virtualtrials.com/pdf/williams2013.pdf (Page 46)

My life partner started taking 20mg melatonin per day when she started her chemo and radiation treatment after surgery for grade III anaplastic glioma (fully resected) about year and a half ago. She's taking it ever since. No side effects. It doesn't seem to help her sleep. She always fell asleep easily and slept good.

We decided it should be safe for her as there was a research (can't locate it now) where some women were given 20mg/day dose for, I guess two years or so, in hopes it shows some contraceptive properties. It didn't but no side effects showed up.

Re: Melatonin

#182

Post by bane »

My wife is a terrible sleeper -- around bed-time she'll suddenly want to do various household chores, vacuum, chat endlessly etc., that combined with irregular and often stressful work, my usually very regular sleep pattern has been totally annihilated over the last 5-10 years.

It also reached the point in the last year that I needed to be at one work site a few days a week, but at 6am, then another site different days at 9am, then work from home the rest of the time which meant trying to "catch up" with a 10-11am wakeup.

I finally broke down and started taking 3 mg of Melatonin, but only if I've had 2 recurring nights if bad sleep. The effect is kind of strange. About 20-30 minutes after taking it, my strongest desire in the world is to want to go to bed, but it doesn't exactly make me "sleepy". After my head hitting my pillow, I'm asleep in about 10 minutes. If I need to, I'll take it multiple days in a row until I feel like my sleep cycle is sorted out, then I stop. I'll also take it if I need to suddenly change my cycle and get up very early the next day or something. Wakefulness comes smoothly and refreshingly, not jarring.

I finally got my wife to start taking it and now all the fuss over getting her to go to sleep has ended completely. As soon as she starts wanting to do things and it's late at night, she pops a Melatonin pill and is asleep inside of 40 minutes.

It's absolutely transformed our sleep/work/live/wake cycles. It feels like I can finally wrestle a bit of control back from an overburdened modern life.

The only problem is that the next day I usually feel very cloudy headed the entire day and have a mild urge to go back to bed until mid-afternoon.

Re: Melatonin

#183

Post by mattchew »

I tried melatonin thanks to this article (thanks gwern!).

It does help me get to sleep. I've used it about 10 times now and only once did I still have trouble falling asleep, and even then I did within an hour or so.

Unfortunately, it does NOT stop me from waking at 4:30 or 5 AM and then having trouble falling back asleep. Still, this is less stressful than not falling asleep in the first place.

Note that the probable effective dose is much lower than what you're likely to get in one pill from the store. I couldn't remember the effective dose, got 5mg pills, ended up quartering them.

I don't have any hangover effects, and I wonder if you all that do are taking too much.

It's worth trying if you have sleep issues.

Re: Melatonin

#184

Post by mattchew »

polshaw wrote: post #169

I'm disappointed to see no comments here whatsoever that are addressing one of the central (and AFAICT unsupported) claims of this article-- that regular melatonin use can reduce the amount of sleep needed by almost an hour. I have no doubts that melatonin is very useful for getting to sleep quicker, but if the reduced sleep claim is accurate, then it may move from an occasional use when needed, to a default use. The…

I remarked on this above also. I have early morning waking also (not sure if it's insomnia or just my getting older).

I use melatonin when I know I'm stressed and would normally have trouble falling asleep. I try not to use it more than once a week and I am hesitant to habituate myself to it.

It is an interesting idea that my nights with early waking might nevertheless be more restful when taking melatonin, but I haven't noticed this particularly. Presently I am hoping more exercise will get me sleeping more solidly through the night.

Re: Melatonin

#185

Post by da02 »

magicalist wrote: post #172
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.

Pineal gland calcification happens to almost everyone [1], whether you're vitamin D deficient or not. Not only is it completely normal, the health effects you mention have certainly not been shown to correlate with calcification. Honestly, the only people that bring this up are people still steadfast against fluoridation of water and people looking for an overly simplistic cause for alzheimer's. [1] http://radiology.…

Your study focused on newborns to 20 yrs. It didn't consider the 30 to 70 crowd. Children and young adults usually don't have this problem since their bodies are rapidly growing and absorb large amounts of iron/calcium/etc to grow.

Not only that, but your study observed extreme cases: "The majority of patients included in the study had a history of seizures or minor head injury."

I never heard of calcification linked with fluoridation and Alzheimer's. So I wasn't suggesting that.

Apparantly you've never given magnesium citrate to older family members and watched them get the best sleep in a long time. Moreover, an American diet filled with calcium + little magnesium + Americans taking calcium supplements for osteo-porosis + plus deficiency of various nutrients is bound to lead to various problems. Then again, I'm not a doctor. In fact, I don't even have a college degree. So feel free to ignore anything I say.

If people want to be more concerned about vitamins/supplements rather than a diet rich in iron/HFCS + deadly FDA-approved drugs, so be it. I will take my chance with the vitamin fanatics like Linus Pauling (took mega doses of Vitamin C, died of cancer... at the age of 93).

I will grant your wish. I will stop talking about vitamins and supplements on HN. However, for any crackpot vitamin fanatics out there, head over to http://knowledgeofhealth.com That's one of the best sites I know and are very good at spotting mistakes in mediocre research proving that vitamins are deadly, cancer inducing toxins.

Re: Melatonin

#186

Post by da02 »

thebooktocome wrote: post #64
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.

Thanks for pointing that out. It answered my question. Thanks also for the links.

Re: Melatonin

#187

Post by jmulho »

Melatonin is this person’s religion. I wonder how much time they spend thinking and talking about it.

Stranger still is the herd of commenters who condone the stuff. Do you really think this will make you need an hour less sleep than everyone else?

Sleep is important. Don’t intentionally destroy your body’s ability to regulate it. If you aren’t already addicted to melatonin, it’s not too late:

Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Don’t drink caffeine after breakfast. Expose yourself to natural sunlight every day. Don’t play Grand Theft Auto after midnight.

Re: Melatonin

#188

Post by brador »

krmmalik wrote: post #91

I've had on and off problems with insomnia, but have finally come up with a pretty reliable method for overcoming it. Some of my methods were used by others as well. I think it's important to identify what's causing the insomnia. It's not always going to be the same thing for everyone, or even for you, every single time. Some days, for me, it's just simply because I have too much on my mind. Other times, it's because…

What is the Blackseed oil for?

Re: Melatonin

#189

Post by ajslater »

tedks wrote: post #127
ChristianMarks wrote: post #114

Gwern comes close to suggesting filtering blue light, but I will repeat a previous post. I've tried melatonin, but it is no substitute for for filtering blue light in my experience, and it tends to induce horrific, apocalyptic nightmares (granted, a night dreaming of EAS Emergency Action Notifications is better than no sleep at all). I used to be an owl for years--decades. A regular 9-5 schedule seemed out of reach.…

> it tends to induce horrific, apocalyptic nightmares I've used melatonin for years, as have many of my friends and family, and I've never had anyone mention this. I've always had more vivid dreams with melatonin, but I've never had nightmares.

Melatonin does not directly induce nightmares, per say, just the vivid or lucid dreams you are familiar with. However, if just one of those incredibly vivid melatonin induced dreams goes awry and descends into nightmare territory, you will remember it for a long, long time.

Re: Melatonin

#190

Post by afterburner »

realitygrill wrote: post #136
afterburner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not addictive. In fact I found myself not wanting to take it after a while because I had so much energy from getting good sleep, I wanted to stay up late doing stuff. (Even though I should, so I get to sleep at a decent hour.) I recommended 1mg per 50lbs of body weight, and get the fast acting one, not the slow-dissolving one; those made me drowsy the next morning. It is a little harder to snap to attention righ…

Interesting. I'm not sure I've seen extended-release melatonin. IIRC melatonin does not help you stay asleep, so that would be fairly useless. I recommend starting at the smallest dose you can find designed for sublingual (under-the-tongue dissolving) administration. 0.3mg to 1mg is a good range.

This is the extended release one that made me sleepy the next day:

http://www.jamiesonvitamins.com/node/1418

This is the one I use that works great:

http://www.jamiesonvitamins.com/chocolate_mint_melatonin

Post reply on HN