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Comment by bigmadshoe | Hacker News Reader

The problem with that take is that the evidence for melatonin is quite poor outside of jet-lag and certain more serious sleep disorders, and there can be unexpected effects elsewhere in the body when supplementing hormones, e.g. increased rates of depression for melatonin in particular.

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This. Melatonin is a hormone. You should always be extra careful when dealing with any kind of hormone as it might affect your own body's regulations.

yeah. that’s been my experience as well. my doctor gave me the impression that melatonin helps set the cycle but magnesium glycinate is what calms the body.

This. And maybe anecdotal, but my experience of people who have used melatonin is that they sleep very deeply, but for a shorter amount of time. But likely they will wake up after around 6/7 hours sleep, rather than the recommended 8 hours of sleep. And once woken up, it's very hard to go back to sleep.

I specifically take a timed release melatonin, really improved my sleep. Otherwise I did have inconsistent sleep on regular melatonin.

>rather than the recommended 8 hours of sleep

for people getting 7 hours of sleep you're good. Improve your sleep hygiene, ok, but artificial interventions to get 8 may not be worth it for you.

7 is enough for a lot of adults. especially 7 hours of quality sleep. After seeing a sleep doctor I realized that stressing out about not getting exactly 8 hours each night was part of my problem! I did a lot of experimentation to find my optimal hours and it was not quite 8. Trying to force extra hours doesn't really work.

AFAIK 7-9 hours is the commonly used range, anything less than 7 hours or anything more than 9 can have detrimental effects on how well rested you feel after waking up. Where did you get the notion that adults need exactly 8 hours on the dot?

It really is variable. My number is closer to 9, so even nights I get my "good 8 hours" I still end up with a sleep deficit by the end of the week.

That's what my wife and I sleep for, 7 hours. 8 and we wake up with a headache.

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