The Very Useful: Melatonin and Getting SOM

Melatonin:

• What is it?: Your body’s natural sleep hormone, released at night in response to decreased environmental light. Artificial light sources like digital devices can delay natural melatonin release.
• Melatonin Supplements: Doses of 1-5 mg have been associated with mild improvements in sleep (this isn’t a massively powerful drug)
• Studied Uses: Jet Lag, Delayed Sleep Onset, Shift Worker Disorder and Insomnia
• Dosages: Response by dose is variable by person, so start low and see how it goes, many people see good results with microdoses of 0.1-0.5 mg
• Tolerance: Surprisingly, and uniquely for the sleep world, Melatonin does not seem to build up tolerance over time (nor does there appear to lead to withdrawal or rebound insomnia when stopping use)
  • Rob, Founder and Chief Product Officer, at Som Sleep was the first to explain this to me when I was peppering him with questions about SOM and my potential concerns (more below)
    • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21091391
    • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21091391 
    • https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0063773

My Experience: