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Comment by maltyr | Hacker News Reader

And those studies suggest that melatonin plays a critical part in your circadian rhythm, which kind of implies that adding it to your food would also screw with your circadian rhythm. That alone seems like a good enough reason to caution against adding it into the food supply.

Additionally, there are receptors for melatonin in a number of systems in the body, and we don't have much knowledge on what those receptors do.

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> And those studies suggest that melatonin plays a critical part in your circadian rhythm, which kind of implies that adding it to your food would also screw with your circadian rhythm. That alone seems like a good enough reason to caution against adding it into the food supply.

I think you're correct. But electric light also screws with your circadian rhythm, and that's a concern almost nobody takes seriously. Years back I built my own automated lighting system [1] and the biggest thing I learned from it is that I'm not a responsible lightswitch user. My sleep schedule used to be very chaotic. But once I set up my screens and my house to dim and redshift in line with a regular day-night cycle, I not only started sleeping very regularly, but my mood and focus improved.

When electric lighting was introduced it notably changed sleep schedules. [2] But we got used to that and just kinda went with it, even though surveys show massive problems with sleep. For me now it's a cautionary tale about how little we understand the impact of technologies we adopt.

[1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise

[2] E.g., the "'Til Morning is Nigh" segement here: https://backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/

Then again, my circadian rhythm has been pretty broken since I was a child. Not only does my body drift toward a 28-hour day (20 awake, 8 asleep) if I'm not careful, but I tend not to get tired enough to sleep until 3am or 4am.

Melatonin supplements fix my circadian rhythm. I don't take it every night, but when I do, I get tired and fall asleep within 3-5 hours, sleep for a solid 8 or 9, and then feel pretty good for the next day. And if I take it again that night at the appropriate time, I can keep myself much closer to a 24-hour wake/sleep cycle.

Once I took melatonin to get a better afternoon nap.

I never felt so groggy in my life. Completely screwed up my internal clock.

I’m very careful with it since then.

Taking it at night time doesn’t quite show how powerful it is - since you’re sleepy anyway.

The point is taking it in the night if you're not able to get sleepy, especially if you fucked up your circadian rhythm. Taking it in the afternoon is going to fuck up the circadian rhythm if it wasn't already. For that you're better off taking chamomile and valerian.

many people misunderstand melatonin, it isn't a sleeping pill, it's a tool for adjusting your circadian rhythm, taking it before a nap is crazy

Melatonin supplements are not good for napping. If it's having the proper effect, it should get your body into full sleep mode, and you'll want to get a full 8 hours or whatever. Forcing yourself up early will have the exact effect you describe.

> Taking it at night time doesn’t quite show how powerful it is - since you’re sleepy anyway.

If you're already sleepy enough to fall asleep at what you deem to be a reasonable time, and you're able to sleep deeply enough for the length of time you want, then you probably don't need melatonin supplements.

My understanding is that melatonin is useful for adjusting one’s internal clock. As an example, if you were to change time zones you could use it to more quickly adjust to a new bed time.

That’s how I try to use it now, only when I want to adjust what time I get sleepy. For the same reason, I only take it for one or two nights. It doesn’t make sense to take it continuously to me.

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