Melatonin supplements: 0.3mg (300mcg) daily taken shortly before bed.
What’s the reasoning for taking it shortly before bed? I’ve heard that the default time to take melatonin should be a couple of hours before bed, except to treat delayed or advanced sleep phase.
Thanks for flagging this! I’m going to edit it and clarify as ‘shortly’ is not a very specific recommendation. I’ve seen recommendations ranging from 30 minutes to 3 hours, with 1-2 hours being most common, so it’s not exactly clear when is most effective. Earlier doses seem to cause some people to wake abnormally early.
I’ll change this to 2 hours as that’s what was used in the literature cited.
>2 hours as that’s what was used in the literature cited
Are you talking about that single study?
My current prior is that the optimal time for melatonin before bed changes between people, and I suggest that my friends experiment with it in nights that aren’t so important first, in case it doesn’t work well. [The reason is that I’m confused about Scott’s recommendation to take it mid-day or to take it just-before-sleep]
Regarding the recommendations you saw—I’d want to dig into “what are they based on”. The article Thomas linked to gives the best review I’ve seen about what we know about Melatonin (as Scott Alexander often does when he summarizes scientific topics)
Adding: The same article recommends a supplier, and I also check suppliers here.
And while I’m at it, gwern also writes quality in depth reviews, including about melatonin
Both the Slate Star Codex and Gwern articles are great and helped inform the article! (I think both are linked at points in the text)
And yes, 2 hours is the timing used in the Zhdanova study. I couldn’t find a clear consensus on any particular timing so I have chosen this without doing significant further research. I completely agree with you that experimenting with the timing of it seems ideal.
What’s the reasoning for taking it shortly before bed? I’ve heard that the default time to take melatonin should be a couple of hours before bed, except to treat delayed or advanced sleep phase.
Thanks for flagging this! I’m going to edit it and clarify as ‘shortly’ is not a very specific recommendation. I’ve seen recommendations ranging from 30 minutes to 3 hours, with 1-2 hours being most common, so it’s not exactly clear when is most effective. Earlier doses seem to cause some people to wake abnormally early.
I’ll change this to 2 hours as that’s what was used in the literature cited.
>2 hours as that’s what was used in the literature cited
Are you talking about that single study?
My current prior is that the optimal time for melatonin before bed changes between people, and I suggest that my friends experiment with it in nights that aren’t so important first, in case it doesn’t work well. [The reason is that I’m confused about Scott’s recommendation to take it mid-day or to take it just-before-sleep]
Regarding the recommendations you saw—I’d want to dig into “what are they based on”. The article Thomas linked to gives the best review I’ve seen about what we know about Melatonin (as Scott Alexander often does when he summarizes scientific topics)
Adding: The same article recommends a supplier, and I also check suppliers here.
And while I’m at it, gwern also writes quality in depth reviews, including about melatonin
Both the Slate Star Codex and Gwern articles are great and helped inform the article! (I think both are linked at points in the text)
And yes, 2 hours is the timing used in the Zhdanova study. I couldn’t find a clear consensus on any particular timing so I have chosen this without doing significant further research. I completely agree with you that experimenting with the timing of it seems ideal.