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It's interesting that the article mentions the importance of not disrupting the body's natural ability to produce melatonin but does not mention melatonin when
by spuz 11y ago
It's interesting that the article mentions the importance of not disrupting the body's natural ability to produce melatonin but does not mention melatonin when talking about sleep medication. As far as I understand artifial melatonin actually increases REM sleep, does not trigger sleep walking and can be taken for longer than a week. In my experience it does increase the intensity of dreams which could be a negative side effect if you are prone to nightmares. I went through a period of poor pre bed habits - staying up late, using my phone and not taking the time to unwind and I would take .75 mg of melatonin right before going to sleep in an effort to 'correct' for my bad habits. I would not recommend this as a lifestyle at all but if you have to rely on medication, melatonin seems to be one of the more effective sleep aids out there.
- marak830 11y agoIm on melatonin at the moment. Its nice to hear about someone else, id nnever heard of it before the doctor recommended it before sleeping tablets.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoI've been on melatonin for a very long time. Maybe 10-15 years. It took a very long time for it to not work as well as it used to, but that finally happened. I find that even with poor sleep, you get more REM and more "recharge" with a healthy dose of melatonin. As far as sleep goes, in my mind it's a miracle drug.
- provemewrong 11y agoI hadn't heard about melatonin until a thread on reddit where everyone was raving about it and sharing stories about how it knocks them right out. Now I ocassionally take a pill, but I don't really feel any effects and I'm still not entirelly sure if it is putting me to sleep faster or not. I still take it at least for the placebo effect and because it's fairly cheap.
- marak830 11y agoMy doc said it could take a week or two initally to have a real effect, ive just passed the 2 week mode, and im combining this with sleeping naked(sorry tmi i know, but hey, it helps haha), and lowering my evening caffeine ammount (i useto only have one no later than 7pm, now i make that one weak).
- mistermann 11y ago> I would not recommend this as a lifestyle at all Is there a reason for that, is it dangerous longer term? I've been taking 10mg nighlty for a while now compared to your .75mg, a girl I know says her grandmother has been taking it for decades and swears by it, and she's fit as a fiddle.
- spuz 11y agoI was using melatonin to compensate for otherwise easily rectifiable poor habits in the same way that many people stay up everynight and wake up with 5 cups of coffee. Fix your habits first then if you need further help think about medication.
- dhimes 11y agoI find that taking melatonin for a few nights in a row sort of corrects me for a while. Then I would go off of it until I had a few days of poor sleep (usually off for several weeks). I started having nightmares/anxiety dreams so I stopped. At first I thought maybe there was something about different formulations (brands) of melatonin but then the 'good' brand also started giving me anxiety dreams. Did they change their formulation to cut costs? Or is it me? I can't be sure.
- jaredandrews 11y agoLike many people here I have difficulty sleeping. I took melatonin for a while and it definitely helped. But it had the unfortunate side effect of inducing sleep paralysis. Anyone else run into to this issue?