Go to the Netherlands, to the Kruidvat (or Etos or something similar) and just buy a lifetime worth of supply of Melatonin. It's 0.1 mg.

I'm Dutch and live here. But my wife is American. If I ever happen to live in the US (chances are there in my lifetime). I'm going to employ this strategy.

I don't trust the US with this and the Netherlands has proven itself to me in this sense. There are probably many more European countries that do this well. I'm simply not changing a winning team.

But I'd love to hear from other people that believe they found a good melatonin supply in a country. I'm curious.

I used to do this too, but I learned that will give you inconsistent dosage as the pills aren't guaranteed to have the active ingredient spread uniformly.

You'd expect the standard OTC dose to be a sensible starting point, not potentially several times more than a younger person needs

"sleep stack" gets my vote for winner of the 2026 "How You Know You're On HN" award

People would rather get a wifi connected smart bed and track their sleep stats with a smart watch than put their phone away and read a book before bed

Would it not be easier to not drink so much caffeine late in the day? Unless you're jetlagged, there's not much evidence AFAIK that melatonin will induce sleep better than a placebo.

Yeah I'm in the 300 mcg camp, I take a time release formulation, try to take it early but often it isn't far off bedtime.

I end up biting a lot of pills to get around that dose. I definitely always felt groggy until I dialed down the dose to just right, and it works perfectly: I fall asleep far quicker and more assuredly, and I don't feel to groggy. I can't believe they sell pills as large as they do, what other medication varies in dosage as much?

And having a 0.3mg (300mcg) group - the dose many meticulous online self-experimenters have found sufficient, a mere 15% of their lowest-tested 2mg.

Would a headline "morning coffee found to cause stomach problems and anxiety" be reasonable, if the smallest dose tested was 7 cups – and that dosage fact was omitted from the attached abstract/story?

Good point. For regular coffee drinkers, testing an hour after waking without their usual caffeine could be its own cognitive impairment experiment

I hope you mean µg.

I take a 3mg every night, but I've read that independent labs have studied the common OTC brands and found wildly different Melatonin content than advertised.

So I really don't know how much I take.

less than 1 is plenty

5 as in milligrams?! I’ve found 10mg is sometimes just enough, but 20-30mg is where I actually feel a noticeable difference

Exactly the same experience and I try to wake up with natural sunlight as much as possible.

The productivity and mental boost from that is incomparable.

As a night owl who tried to fight it for too long my advice is don't change your natural circadian rythm. For some reason hustle influencer culture made us believe we should wake up at 6AM for a productive day. We all have 24 hours, just do what works for you.

Most of Europe doesn't wake up that early. Only the US is obsessed with 4AM hustle culture. Stop that!

I tried to change my sleep for 10 years and for the last 2 I have been embracing the night owl rhythm. And yes I have kids and an amazing partner.

Eliminate all screens after sundown. It's literally the nr 1 reason why people struggle. I used to as well (I could easily work in front of a monitor until 4am without getting tired with no coffee or anything). After that, avoid any bright white lights in the evening (usually kitchen/bathroom). It's not always possible, depending on your work and place of living and especially while travelling. I ended up getting extreme blue light filtering glasses too (make sure they cover your eyes fully so light doesn't leak in from the side). Looks ridiculous, but that helped a lot. Finally, add a wind down routine that does not involve any kind of mental or physical excitement. For me it was as simple as walking around the block for 10-15min. But it can be anything that doesn't stimulate you in any way. You can try to sit in the darkness and meditate.

You will not just sleep better, you will have no issues sleeping at night and getting up in the morning. Downside is that you will definitely be awake once the sun rises (sucks in summer if you live far from the equator) and if you shut the blinds and have no automatic opener you are very likely to oversleep. Tuning your body to the solar day has pros and cons.

It was not an option. Kids need a regular schedule with school and things. It was rough though. I did not ever drink coffee before that time, but starting then I needed several cups just to avoid accidents in the morning.

This is how I did it: this is about two things: mornings and evenings and both need attention. Set a new wake up time. Deduct 7 hours from it. Deduct one more for buffer. This tells you when you need to be in bed with lights out and trying to fall asleep to then get the mandatory 7h of sleep to be a functional human being in the morning. If your new wake target is 5:45, you need to be in bed lights out at 22:45 and since 21:45 with no screens. So you need to deduct another hour to cut off screens early, and in optimal case like -3 more to cut food intake and -6 more to cut caffeine intake. I got some reminders on my phone which let me know the time comes, so I spend the last hour before nights out reading or writing or whatever. So that’s evenings. In the morning my phone rings and to turn it off I need to scan a QR code in my bathroom (alarmy app). This forces me out of bed and then I drink about 500ml of water. I also have a smart plug with a LED light on it which go on together with the alarm clock and goes on for 20 mins. Once wake, I spend 15 minutes in front of it getting light in my face which signals the body the day starts. Then I get dressed and go out for a short quick walk/run outside (aka powerwalk) which gets my heart working. Then I come back, make coffee and start work. This way I get enough good quality sleep + each morning physical signals (water, light, movement) that signal my body it is action time. I was very surprised that already after a week my body started waking up minutes before the alarm clock! And that’s after decades of irregular late sleep! But consistency is key: early sleep and early wake up on as many days as possible. It is totally doable and you can streamline in into a simple process which doesn’t take much time or effort.

Anecdotally, I’m a night owl by default but if I force myself up for exercise at 7am, I am tired that night and I am better (mentally and physically) that day. My workouts aren’t as good as if they were after work, but it doesn’t matter if I’m going 3/4 times a week.

My mood is better, my routine matches the “world” better, and I would say I’m mentally sharper on those days too. YMMV

You have to completely stop caffeine, best to cut nicotine too. It's worth it. Watch out for caffeine In cola etc.

Generally yes, and I definitely am an advocate of getting enough sleep and good quality sleep.

Regarding "sleep more to be more efficient"; Hard to say without visiting a parallel universe. But in this specific case it was really about having enough hours in a day. Most of the work did not require me at my sharpest. If I was in the same situation today, Claude would be doing these menial things for me and I'd sleep more. But we didn't have Claude then.

It was a tech startup that I wanted to build without any outside money. With investments of course I'd just hire more people. I had luck and perseverance, and everything turned out great. I had 100% ownership and sold it for private equity. Now I only work because I like solving tricky problems, and not working gets incredibly boring after a while.

Yes, but this is sadly a lesson most founders (especially american ones) need to self teach.

I certainly did and struggle with both sleep and stress induced anxiety, 9 years after my founder burnout.

What dose are you using? Most OTC melatonin supplements are sold in a 3 or 5mg dose, while the correct one is ~0.3mg or even lower for some people. High dose may be related to the fogginess.

same here. I use 5HTP instead, apparently the same chemical pathway just goes in at a different point. no fog in the morning at all. Nice and sharp, feel good.

Not OP but I seem to get a benefit from GABA. Valerian root is effective at inducing sleep but leaves me groggy and I've had paradoxical anxiety reactions to it and there's some question around its longer term use. L-theanine is often mentioned but I'm not sure I benefit. Magnesium glycinate is another that comes up often.

Doxylamine for OTC, but if you take too much it will really make you groggy the next day (other people in the thread have shared the same experience.) Zolpidem/Ambien works really really well, but it's prescription only and also addictive so doctors advise to not take it more than a few days in a row at max.

Insomniac for 20 years. What was a complete solution for me was: magnesium, b6 p5p (p5p form very important) and the ultimate punch glycine.

Glycine takes some getting used to, as you will have crazy intense dreams at first. But it is a very safe supplement to take even in large doses.

I always had huge insomnia issues after a physically intensive days after workouts. The stack I settled on solved it. A heavy day just needs a bit more magnesium and quite a bit more glycine.

Hmm no there's no little evidence to support the body getting used to external melatonin and not making its own in response

Being charitable to OP, I think their advice is to look after your health before hyper focusing on your sleep. I’ve had a similar experience - the better I care for my body the better my sleep is (and the opposite is a self reinforcing cycle). For me, personally, CBT and therapy helped hugely with the feelings of overwhelm I got from feeling like I wasn’t getting enough sleep and gave me the tools to deal with the fact that I’m not going to fall asleep at 11:30 and wake up at 7:30 like I would like to. It’s not perfect, but what is?

the lowest otc dose I previously witnessed was 1mg, perhaps my phrasing should have been "smallest commonly available dosage", because the correct dose is indeed in the vicinity of 100mcg