Do you know anything about long-term consequences of taking melatonin supplements? I remember the results being inconclusive when I looked it up once.
I'm currently trying to get off melatonin and also get to a natural sleep cycle (meaning I won't have an alarm in the morning). But that usually means that I won't be able to fall asleep at night and I'll sleep forever in the morning if nothing external is waking me up. I'm not sure if I should continue or if I should just start taking melatonin again because it helps tremendously.
I haven't found anything that would point to total safety or the opposite. Then again, there are plenty of studies on the dangers of sugar and I still eat a bit of chocolate every day. Same for red meat, plastics touching food, caffeine, beer, being slightly overweight, driving, not using sunscreen regularly, stress, lack of sleep.
Is the risk of taking a small amount of melatonin every day really something to worry about in the bigger picture, if it helps you and has a long history of being used for this purpose without problems?
Like lots of people here I just can't beat my tendencies to stay up late despite massively good sleep hygiene. I end up missing sleep, being cranky and depressive, and generally having a lower quality of life because I just don't feel like going to bed - and when I do make it to bed I ruminate for a long time before falling asleep. If no new information presents itself, I plan on keeping good habits and being on melatonin for the rest of my life.
Sounds reasonable. I'll try it a little bit longer without melatonin, but if the issues with falling asleep persist, I'll probably start taking small amounts of melatonin again. It definitely helped a ton with falling asleep over the past few years, but I'm actually not sure how much of that is placebo.
Melatonin does (reasonably) well against placebo in the time-to-sleep studies I've read. If you want to read up, Gwern has the most accessible collection out there:
I don't have an answer for long-term melatonin unfortunately.
In most folks circadian rhythm is not exactly 24 but slightly more or less. In this case it is helpful to force the sync by getting exposure to sun light (or a source of similar quality) in the morning and religiously cut off exposure to light several hours before going to bed.
Ideally you completely filter out both blue and green wavelength (which trigger the suppression of melatonin) and keep overall levels low.
For more information see shift workers' strategies - they have to change their rhythm on a weekly basis.
It is worth mentioning that lifelong sleep deprivation is linked to different types of dementia in the elderly, so I’m not sure which is worse: persistent sleep problems or nightly hormone supplements.
I'm currently trying to get off melatonin and also get to a natural sleep cycle (meaning I won't have an alarm in the morning). But that usually means that I won't be able to fall asleep at night and I'll sleep forever in the morning if nothing external is waking me up. I'm not sure if I should continue or if I should just start taking melatonin again because it helps tremendously.