I’m very addicted to sleeping pills and have to take two extra strength pills AND some other sort of drowse inducing medicine like Benadryl to get to sleep at night now. I’ve often wondered if serotonin could help break this addiction. Is it addiction forming at all?
I have taken it (one tablet) and thought that it did help me to sleep better and fall asleep faster, but that may have been in my head.
I don’t do the ambi-snacking but I’ve heard of this. I do other weird stuff I don’t remember though like I called a friend at like 1 am and told her to get dressed that I would come pick her up and we’d go to Waffle House. She got dressed and waited for me but I just fell asleep.
Thanks for the replies. I might take a look around this weekend to see what I can find.
I’m assuming it’s usually sold in tablets, which can be split without problem? One of my hesitations (about any type of sleep aid) is that I’m a rather small person. Average doses of medications are usually calculated for people with at least twenty pounds on me, so there’s some trial-and-error in figuring out how much of a dose to take (and don’t get me started on gelcaps).
Try mugwort. You can get it at some herbal stores. You sprinkle a little in some non-caffeinated tea (you need the other tea, too, to mask the horrid taste) and let it steep for a few minutes, then drink the whole thing down (don’t swallow the mugwort leaves themselves, though; you can filter them out or not, whatever you like). Efficacy varies by person, but it’s cheap, non-prescription and has absolutely no risk of addiction.
It does give you super trippy dreams, but they’re not bad, just super weird.
And I’ll second the recommendation for valerian as a nice add-on when you’re stressed out.
The typical smallest dose you may see in stores is 3 mg, but if you look hard enough you may be able to find 1 mg tablets. But yes, it usually comes in tablets.
3mg when needed. I sleep and DREAM better.
I take 3mg of melatonin pretty much every night, because without it I just cannot seem to go to bed before 1 a.m. or later. It doesn’t seem to work every time, but it mostly does. You just need to allow for about 8 hours of sleep or you will be groggy a bit.
I took some with me for some plane flights but it didn’t seem to help any. Switched to using the ambien when I needed it.
Tylenol PM (and other such OTC meds0 are nearly always a OTC pain reliever and a Benedryl clone. It’s hwaaaay cheaper to buy generic versions of each and take both/either as needed.
I find Melatonin to be mostly harmless and of some use. Note that some Melatonin comes with B-6. Take enough B-6 and you could cause nerve damage.
I have also taken Ambien with none of the odd side-effects dudes talk about. Not more than a Benedryl and a shot of booze caused, anyway.
Incidentally, never take more than one modest drink before bed. You may get to sleep, but said sleep will be of poor restless quality.
I have used it for years with some morning grogginess, and this from not even taking the full tablet. Can’t recall any weird dreams. Quality of sleep is pretty good.
For me, melatonin grogginess is minor compared to how I feel after Benadryl or other OTC sleep aids.
This thread has cursed me! Cursed me I say! I took 3mg last night with some wine and had some Bizarre dreams and woke up groggy this morning. First time ever in like 2+ years of using it!
(maybe it was the wine, who knows - I still place blame on this thread) 
I highly recommend L-Tryptophan . Take one or two at bedtime. No grogginess and it works.
Generally speaking, alcohol intake interferes with sleep patterns, so that is not always the best thing to try.
I haven’t taken it for a while, but I recall that I was surprised how well it seemed to work when I first tried it—whereas most other OTC sleep aids, like valerian, do precisely squat (and the fifty-odd different brands of sleeping pill that all contain diphenhydramine just make me feel like complete crap the following day).
I also found that it caused vivid (sometimes disturbing) dreams, and that the efficacy of it began to taper off after a week or two, when used nightly. I might use it very rarely now, if I’m having a bad bout of insomnia, but I wouldn’t take it regularly again. It’s not as effective as Ambien or benzodiazepines, but both of those give me horrible rebound insomnia, even after just one use—basically taking an advance on sleep that I have to pay back later with interest.
This is not something I would recommend taking without speaking to your doctor first.
I take 3mg melatonin every night. It works for me… sometimes a bit too subtle to my liking, but it’s better than anything else I’ve tried. I have tried higher doses up to 9 and even 12mg but I can’t tell any difference. This is maybe because (as I’ve read) you need only 1mg, and more than that has no effect. I’m a big guy so I go with 3mg.
Like others said, my only gripe with melatonin is occasional awakening. It puts me down fairly quickly, and 2 hours later I’ll wake up again, but I can usually get back to sleep fairly easily unless I’m hungry.
The problem you are referring to in 1989 was due to contaminated batches of L-Tryptophan from Japan. The manufacturer I referred to makes a very pure product.
I only lurked in this thread, but as a result of reading it, was moved to try the melatonin myself. It wasn’t hard to find at all. Right in my supermarket with the vitamins/supplements, about $7.00 for 60 of those puppies.
They are easy to swallow, and I’m finding them quite effective. I don’t even have trouble getting back to sleep after my 3AM trip to the bathroom. No sign of grogginess the next morning, either.
As others have reported, they do make me have odd dreams. Not bad dreams, just strange, and I seem to dream almost non-stop when I take the melatonin. Also, my dreams don’t seem like dreams to me when I take this. Does that make sense? Often, when I have odd dreams, I’ll think, in my dream, “this is so bizarre, it must be a dream”, but with the melatonin, I have no feeling of it being a dream. Odd. Not bad, though. I’ve been getting really good sleep, and plan to continue taking it!
I take the lowest dosage possible and enjoy my dreams. No grogginess the next day.
I didn’t realize the extra crazy vivid dreams were common with melatonin use. I thought it was just me! I have lots of weird, vivid dreams anyway, but when I took the melatonin they were noticeably intensified, with some nightmares. That’s not very restful.
I know some people swear by magnesium glycinate as a sleep aid. I’ve tried it and had decent results. My problem isn’t falling asleep so much as getting deep, quality sleep, but the magnesium glycinate knocked me out nicely. I mixed the powder in a glass of water and took it before bed, and didn’t have any grogginess in the morning.