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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

A day or two ago, someone pointed to a great article on Melatonin[0]. I'm pretty sure it was a repeat, from a couple of years ago.

In any case, the thing that struck me, was the recommended dose, of 300 micrograms (0.3mg). Since the lowest OTC dosage is 3mg, and it goes up to at least 10mg, this was a shock. I have been taking 6-9 mg per night.

I immediately lowered the dosage to about 1mg (I have 300 microgram pills on order).

Slept like a baby.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28416035

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I don't have any great articles on this but it's a super sleep secret. Turn off your lights at night. Seriously people leave the lights on every second until they go to bed, but what you really need is for the lights to be off an hour before your planned bed time. You can still use screens, but at a distance (like a far away TV). If you need to see to get to bed, aim the phone at your feet on a low brightness setting.

I have heard similar. I think that Apple's Night Mode is based on that.

General note: if your iPhone won't go dark enough at night even with night mode, look under Accessibility - Display & Text Size -> Reduce White Point. Set the sliding value to what's comfortable for you.

Then scroll down the Accessibility settings page to Accessibility Shortcut. This sets what happens when you triple-click the power button. If you set this to Reduce White Point (RWP), it will turn on/off RWP while remembering the slider setting you selected.

I find this invaluable when I wake up in the middle of the night and want to read for a bit without filling my eyes with light / risking waking anyone.

(Edited for spelling)

When I moved house I made the bedroom electronics-free and put up blackout curtains. Also programmed the house to turn off most lights and din the remaining before bedtime. Night and day sleep quality change.

Ever lost electricity? Or been to a cabin without electric lights? At about 6pm it's like - well, guess I'll turn in for the night.

Camping too! To me its a mixture of just not having that much to do in the pitch darkness, and the natural sense of sleepytime.

I've done everything I could, including this and more drastic measures. Unfortunately, it's just not the 'super sleep secret' people keep promising it to be.

After years of terrible sleep, I gave in and started using melatonin daily. Every part of my life has improved.

Did you find yourself upping the dose after a week or 2? I tried melatonin for a while (dissolvable in the mouth) but once I reached 3mg without falling asleep I just decided that I'm not gonna become dependent on it and stopped cold turkey.

I did not. I have been taking 3mg for months now, though I recently started to suspect it's too much, and dropped down to 1.5mg. If you are taking it at bedtime, rather than a couple of hours before, that can cause it to fail to be effective.

I haven't seen anything to suggest dependency is an issue, and, if I miss a dose (forget to take it until too late), I have reverted to my old sleeping pattern, rather than anything worse. No increased onset insomnia or anything like that.

I bought a lantern which emits a much redder frequency of light and started turning off my lights at night. I am indeed much happier.

I've been suffering from insomnia since last year. To clarify, I'm talking about nights when my mind is either jumping from one place to another, imagining conversations with future doctors (I have an undiagnosed health condition which, after visiting many doctors in my country, a conclusive diagnosis is elusive) or interviews (I've been learning web development since last year but I'm still unemployed).

The combination of turning the lights off in my room, watch something relaxing/calming (that doesn't make me laugh hard or scared) for 1 hour before bed helped me, BUT I also had to use night light for my monitor (flux). I can get at best around 6 hours of sleep and has become my norm as my neighbors can get loud early morning.

Also, I always use relaxing apps to sleep. Rain sounds, white noise, music, I just install and uninstall them 3 times a week trying stuff out.

> I can get at best around 6 hours of sleep and has become my norm as my neighbors can get loud early morning.

Have you tried earplugs? They changed my life on days where people decide to be noisy, which is every other day here. I don't here the car honks, loud neighbors, and thunder anymore.

The best part is I still get woken up by my phone's alarm at full volume, even with earplugs on.

Unfortunately I sleep on the side, plus wearing earplugs would mean that I'd listen to my tinnitus more than the raining/white noise app.

I also sleep on the side and I can use earplugs.. It took me a few days to get used to it though!

I don't know if the tinnitus part can be solved, but sleeping on the side is definitely not a problem. I'm talking about moss earplugs that are entirely contained inside the ear, not over-the-ear earmuffs.

Here's a simple silly way to make some of those electronics LEDs not so piercing at night: https://www.lightdims.com/index.php

Just sticky bits of cellophane that let you still see the lights when you need them but not so intense at night. You can get them on amazon or w/e

Surprised the heck out of me too, I would have intensely weird and disturbing dreams if I took a whole melatonin tablet (around 3-5mg). Slept a lot better once I started dividing them into quarters.

I use one or two drops out of a 3mg/1ml dropper. That's all it takes. I don't know why the OTC doses are so high. Maybe it's helpful for other purposes e.g. jet lag. But for sleep it's much too high a dosage.

It's not a total cure for delayed circadian rhythm (your hormone levels, body temp etc. are still out of sync) but as far as fitting into more typical "business hours" sleep schedule usually expected of us, it does the job.

I like liquid melatonin; it's 1mg / mL and you can just take .3mL to get a 300ug dose.

But yeah, if you go to like CVS or something they only sell 10mg doses. Would not recommend.

Can recommend Flux: https://justgetflux.com/.

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