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Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

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Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#211

Post by siren2026 »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #192
siren2026 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that we all have different natural thresholds. This paper was eye-opening to me: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36799668/ Essentially some people will naturally delay sleep multiple hours after the last light. It is believed it might be an evolutionary mechanism to not have every single person asleep at the same time. And I don't care where hustle culture started. It is more alive than ever in America.

All these studies are highly limited. In addition to general self-reporting issues, you can't say anything about natural day and night cycles unless you carefully control all light exposure (and ofc other stimulants like caffeine, exercise or simply noise) for an extended time. Noone available as participant in these studies would have been living like humans used to before artificial light. You can't expect an undis…

your response equate to "Scientific studies don't matter, my personal anecdotal point of view is what matters".

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#212

Post by wappieslurkz »

toilet wrote: post #110
johntash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else is part of your rotating stacks? Asking as someone who melatonin doesn't seem to help much

Doxylamine for OTC, but if you take too much it will really make you groggy the next day (other people in the thread have shared the same experience.) Zolpidem/Ambien works really really well, but it's prescription only and also addictive so doctors advise to not take it more than a few days in a row at max.

Be careful with long-term or frequent doxylamine use, especially if you’re older. It’s an anticholinergic drug, and studies have linked sustained anticholinergic use to increased dementia risk, though it’s not proven the drugs cause it.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288546

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#213

Post by DANmode »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #85
DANmode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 is almost universally too much. 4 is almost universally too much.. 3 is the most I’ve ever recommended. More than enough.

5 as in milligrams?! I’ve found 10mg is sometimes just enough, but 20-30mg is where I actually feel a noticeable difference

I’d be looking at other problems.

That’s…an extreme amount, as the other commenter said.

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#214

Post by ajb »

budsniffer952 wrote: post #101
ajb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a rumour that the high doses are because the correct dose was under patent. I can only find that in a comment here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th... but I could have sworn it was in the main article when I first read it. (If so that makes it less likely, because the author revises his articles for correctness) That (albeit long) article is worth reading. For example, it explain…

That's not a "rumour", it's conspiracy theory. Because everything is a conspiracy theory now. No, the dosage is not patented. It doesn't even make sense. How would it work? "Oh, 0.5mg is patented, so let's put 1mg in the tablets and never sell 0.5mg". I can get all kinds of dosages from the pharmacy. However, most of what they stock is "too high", probably because there's very little research/wisdom/knowledge around…

You could actually look at the sources before dismissing them as a conspiracy theory. It took less than 2 seconds to click through to the patent, of which the very first claim is:

- 1. A method of reducing the period before the onset of sleep in an individual comprising administering to the individual a single dose of melatonin of less than 1 mg, said single dose effective to raise the peak plasma level of melatonin in the individual to within physiological nocturnal levels of normal untreated individuals.

And that patent was granted.

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#215

Post by phil21 »

nunez wrote: post #208
wnolens wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all software jobs I've had (small, medium, and big tech), there's been no question about my start time. This has allowed me to sleep until 9-10am, and start work at 11. Huge help for getting any amount of good work out of me.

Unless your team has "core hours" which basically align with US school hours and standup is at the top of that block... But, yeah, generally this is true and is something that I miss from my FTE days. (I'm in tech sales now, and our hours are whatever fits into our customers' calendars...sometimes that means I start at 11, other times I'm going to be on an 08:00 zoom and like it!)

Yeah, this is the problem for me. Society is orientated around morning hours, and kids are the big one here.

When I had a job I rarely had to interact with others, it was pretty easy. I could wake up early on the one day a week or less I needed to do some silly meeting, handle it, and go pass out for a couple hours and come back refreshed.

When it's your daily routine, it's effectively impossible. I can try to sleep in on the weekends, but that's really about it to catch up on decent sleep.

The days I can sleep in until 10-11am I am markedly more productive and just generally happy. But those are very rare now. Just the hours from 6am when my wife wakes up and gets out of bed until 9-10am are crazy in terms of how much better sleep I get overall. The previous 5-6 hours almost are immaterial. I could go to bed at 4am those nights and not notice a difference between going to bed at 11pm.

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#216

Post by colordrops »

flexagoon wrote: post #53
colordrops wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote - I've used it dozens of times and I'm always foggy in the AM, so I avoid it if I have to be sharp the next morning. Perhaps it's a coincidence and this study is flawed, but I can believe it pretty easily.

What dose are you using? Most OTC melatonin supplements are sold in a 3 or 5mg dose, while the correct one is ~0.3mg or even lower for some people. High dose may be related to the fogginess.

Yeah, I'm familiar with that, and I try to break them into small pieces, but sometimes I just pop one. I always get the smallest dose I can find. I don't really use it except for jetlag anyway.

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#217

Post by DANmode »

kylecazar wrote: post #132
DANmode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 is almost universally too much. 4 is almost universally too much.. 3 is the most I’ve ever recommended. More than enough.

I take a 3mg every night, but I've read that independent labs have studied the common OTC brands and found wildly different Melatonin content than advertised. So I really don't know how much I take.

83% less to 478% more than the dosage advertised on the label, based on these studies.

Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates melatonin as a dietary supplement rather than a prescription drug, manufacturers have less strict oversight.

Independently tested brands remain supreme.

Often not even the expensive brands.

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#218

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

johntash wrote: post #17
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #13

Not sleeping impairs my morning cognition - a lot. Melatonin is part of the rotating stacks I use to mitigate insomnia. My mornings have always been impaired, going back to pre-school. Meds don't make my mornings any worse than my baseline.

What else is part of your rotating stacks? Asking as someone who melatonin doesn't seem to help much

> What else is part of your rotating stacks?

Diphenhydramine, Hydroxyzine, Tizanidine, Mirtazapine, Phenibut, Kava, Indica.

I take Phenibut and Tizanidine together, 2x week max. Phenibut increases my REM sleep. Tizanidine helps me fall asleep but then wakes me up after 5hrs - and Phenibut counters that (keeps me asleep).

I rotate those two with Hydroxyzine. Staggering meds helps me keep my doses low. I generally take about half the prescribed dose.

Mirtazapine causes weight gain. I only take it when the insomnia is so bad it feels like sleep is broken.

Indica makes me miserable thru disassociation. That kills my tendency to chatter to myself. It also makes me sleepy.

Kava is hit or miss. But I'm trailing a new Kava extract that seems to work better.

Re: Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

#219

Post by philwelch »

mutagen wrote: post #4

This thesis appears to be related or the underlying research: https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/51312 Indicates 2mg and 5mg were given along with the placebo. While these are common dosages available in the US, these are higher dosages than recommended by at least some sleep experts. The thesis doesn't seem to differentiate between the dosages when evaluating cognitive processes. Now I want to evaluate my sleep stack against…

Those are an order of magnitude higher doses than recommended.
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