[haukilup]

> The take-away from that sounds as if you found a sleeping-mask helpful, but there's not much evidence that melatonin had any effect.

How can you reasonably conclude anything from your position, having only read that short comment? They have all the context and data and came to their conclusion. It might or might not be correct, but you're in no place to refute them on the topic of what has helped them personally.

[ianai]

The take away for me was that I have to let the melatonin work. It’s not a benzodiazepine. It won’t knock you out in 15 minutes like a benzodiazepine. But if you don’t counteract it with stimulants (and staring at a light is a stimulant) then it will work for you. It’s probably a lot healthier because of its subtlety too. At the time, I worked a late shift. That meant once I got home I went into dark out mode - to counteract all the stimulation from work. I didn’t absolutely have to do that for melatonin to work, but I was able to push up my sleeping time by doing that alongside melatonin. Ie melatonin works, but melatonin and other restful things I should otherwise be doing helped even more. Synergistically.

At the end of the day, you literally have to decide to end your day.

[Angostura]

I was merely basing on the description as given. If there's more context, it wasn't really given.