Comments on: Melatonin: not so great?

By: Amazed

Amazed — Mon, 12 May 2025 16:17:55 +0000

Tried it for a week. It gave me vivid dreams and left me exhausted and scared. Scared I really did call my friends and have intimate conversations at 3 am. I even called them the next morning to ask. Never again!

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Mon, 12 May 2025 15:09:38 +0000

I can sleep poorly under pretty much any condition. I think that’s why they make coffee.
Various suggestions and prescriptions have had no effect. Anyway, when I hit the sack I’m generally out in a couple of moments. It’s waking up four hours later with my mind going a hundred miles an hour. I could write and essay and even the punctuation wouldn’t need correcting.
So the go-to-sleep stuff doesn’t work or if it does, I don’t notice. Melatonin…zip. Was prescribed trazodone. One hit…nothing. Went to sleep as usual, woke up four hours later alert and ready for the day. Later tried two….weird fidgets, wakefulness, odd feelings on the inside of my upper arms. No mas.
I know a woman who takes five. Based on our relative body weight, I’d take ten. Don’t even want to think about it.
So…if you’re going to take something for bed time, it may as well be cheap port.
And you program your coffee pot and you’re good to go. Might catch a nap later.

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Mon, 12 May 2025 06:14:08 +0000

@ R2L – thanks, I will take a look at some of these, but NOT when I am trying to fall asleep!

https://arvinash.com/

By: R2L

R2L — Mon, 12 May 2025 02:28:26 +0000

AesopFan,
I find some of the YouTube videos by Arvin Ash addressed to laymen to be useful in presenting scientific ideas with suitable graphics and explanations that don’t get overly technical.
But as you appreciate, some ideas (in any field) can be hard to grasp when we don’t have the requisite background nature and nurture.

Excessive internet surfing has probably destroyed my patience to read longer essays or items that aren’t well written or well structured, or just plain too long. The benefit of good comment threads is the summary level info they convey, and/or the links to more detailed sources when that is appropriate.

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Sun, 11 May 2025 05:53:29 +0000

@ Wendy > “Audiotapes knock me out reliably.”

With all due respect to physicsguy and others here, a half chapter of any science textbook does it for me. I try to read a couple a year just to review the concepts and vocabulary though.

By: Wendy K Laubach

Wendy K Laubach — Sun, 11 May 2025 02:55:37 +0000

Audiotapes knock me out reliably.

By: Abraxas

Abraxas — Sun, 11 May 2025 00:05:43 +0000

It konks me out well enough. Sometimes, too well. I dropped Benadryl when I got high blood pressure. I guess it’s just as well that I did. Anyway, it’s the weekend, so I give the melatonin a rest and drink wine instead. Cheers!

By: Mac

Mac — Sat, 10 May 2025 19:21:22 +0000

Thanks for that warning, Kate. It isn’t clear from a quick skim of the paper what constitutes “use,” but it’s pretty infrequent for me, averaging out to maybe once every two weeks, and only half a tablet. In general I’m prejudiced against any and all medications–I need to be convinced that I actually need it, and that it won’t do any harm. Or at least not more harm than good.

By: Shadow

Shadow — Sat, 10 May 2025 14:32:39 +0000

Limiting use of artificial light to the extent practicable, especially fluorescent/LED lights, as well as decent sun exposure, is essential. Indeed, many think that the disruption to our light environment and the modern fear of the sun is the root-root-root cause of the myriad chronic health issues we’re experiencing. Getting both morning and evening light on your unprotected skin and unprotected eyes is critical to building a healthy circadian rhythm. Using dim lighting, red light, fire/candlelight, and/or incandescent lights after sunset is also huge. I started doing this very recently and I’m picking up a lot more sleep on average simply because I can’t stay awake late at night anymore – the type of light I’m using puts me to sleep. Incandescent lights should become more widely available again soon thanks to Trump 2.0, though you can still buy them. You might not get them at your local hardware store, but there are sites that sell them, and they’re worth the trouble. Actually being able to look at your lamp without a sudden headache is nice. In addition to the sleep part, of course.

I occasionally use melatonin only if I’m prepared to sleep very long and deeply, because it makes it very difficult to wake up. Though as I’ve gotten redpilled on the critical importance of sunlight and your overall light environment to your health, I’ve been focusing on that as a way to improve my sleep.

By: Rufus T. Firefly

Rufus T. Firefly — Sat, 10 May 2025 13:26:28 +0000

Jamie,

Broken nights.

I imagine you know that was common prior to man’s invention of electric light and the pervasiveness of bright, artificial light. And it is still common in cultures that do not have electricity.

I rarely had any trouble sleeping through the night, or at any time, but in the past several years I began waking around 1 or 2 am and find myself reading for an hour or two before getting tired again and sleeping until daylight. Based on time stamps of comments here, I don’t think I’m the only neophile that happens to.