| Melatonin helped me with my sleep a bit, but never a lot. What did help is much brighter light during the day (on a timer, so the lighting would become dark in the evening) and adding to the basically-useless blue-light filters on my devices some automatic timed screen brightness changes. I used to have circadian rhythm disorders. The most common pattern for me was the pattern of delayed sleep-wake disorder i.e. night owl disorder. I also experienced non-24 hour sleep-wake disorder, where you go to bed at a different time every "night", offset by an hour or two. At my worst, I experienced irregular sleep-wake disorder, which consists of many short naps throughout the day, with no pattern from day to day. Comorbid with depression, of course. Even the most mild (delayed sleep-wake disorder) is like 50% comorbid with depression. Fortunately I'm now mentally healthy and free from sleep issues, and I attribute that mostly to the lighting changes I've made to my apartment. I've also heard these kinds of changes can help with SAD if the lights are bright enough. Look up how bright the sun is, and try to get your apartment to at least 10% of that. (100% is still too expensive, and 10% seems to work fine.) Note that most indoor lighting is usually closer to 1%. P.S. this is essentially "light therapy" which they prescribe with those pathetic little light boxes, but if you look up the amount of light they give off, it's not nearly enough (and not for a long enough period). Hence why the stupid light boxes had no effect, but my own lighting setup changed my sleep dramatically. Here is a setup similar to my own: https://arbital.com/p/lumenators/ P.P.S Another thing you can try if you have circadian rhythm issues is to exercise hard in the morning right at your desired wake-up time. I never had to try it, but I did see a promising study in mice that showed it could reset their circadian rhythm more dramatically than anything else. P.P.P.S If your sleep issues are not circadian in nature, don't bother with melatonin. You develop a tolerance to the sedative effects of melatonin pretty quickly, in my experience. |