Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
bityard | on: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)
Everyone is different so I'm not suggesting this as a general cure-all, however I'd like to relate my own personal anecdotal experience.

I've always had insomnia since I was a kid and I just chalked it up to "being a night owl." As a teenager, I mostly solved this by living in a permanent fog during the week and "catching up" by sleeping in on the weekend. As an adult, I was suffering greatly from chronic sleep deprivation because adults (mostly) don't have much control over when they can wake up to start the day.

Around 10 years ago, I started taking 5mg melatonin. It's going to sound like I'm overselling it, but it changed my life. It _very reliably_ makes me sleepy 1-2 hours after I take it. If I forget to take it, I am fully awake until the wee hours of the morning. Is it important to note that (for me), after I take it, I have to engage in some passive activity like (calm, non-shouty) YouTube repair videos or reading. Also, the "window of sleepiness" is at most about 30 minutes and if I decide to power through it, I will come out the other side fully awake again. Melatonin does not "force" me to sleep, only highly encourages it.

I was skeptical of melatonin for the longest time. Generally, I rarely see much if any positive effect from supplements. But (for me!) this stuff really works. If anyone reading this is on the fence, I highly recommend giving it a try. (With the acknowledgement that it takes about a week to get into a solid sleep schedule if yours is currently disorganized.)

munksbeer | parent
Melatonin works well to help me get to sleep, but it doesn't keep me asleep. My issue is waking multiple times in the night, mostly because I'm just uncomfortable, but my brain will immediately be thinking of some work or personal task and spinning. I solve this by putting on an audiobook each time, and that focuses my attention, and I'm asleep again in 5 minutes. So, I have developed "solutions" to my sleep problems, but they don't really fix the underlying issues.

Also, I don't take melatonin often, only when I seem to need to reset my sleep cycle, and I only take about 200-300 micrograms.

Why do you take so much? 5mg is a lot, according to the studies.

htek | root | parent | next
Have you been checked for sleep apnea? If you keep waking up throughout the night, it's a good idea to get checked.
bityard | root | parent
I honestly didn't know you could buy less than 1mg.

I started with 5mg arbitrarily because that seemed to be the most common dosage sold at the time. I think about lowering the dosage sometimes but at the end of the day, I know 5mg works well for me. I don't notice any side effects, and it's not any cheaper.

I also started with the special "slow release" formulas but couldn't tell any difference from the normal generic stuff.

ragall | root | parent
My family doctor in Italy strongly recommended taking 0.3-0.5mg of melatonin maximum saying that more won't have a good effect and risks having bad effects such as drowsiness the whole day after waking up. And yes, in Italy most melatonin you'll find in pharmacies is <=1mg.