My take is Less is Best with any medical support, taking Zilch would be my choice....I'm not so sure about no downsides of the 10me melatonin.
This reminds me that I started taking a 5mg dose for many of the above-stated health reasons. Severe next day grogginess made me quit after a couple of nights of it. None of the mainline sites (Healthline, Mayo, WebMD) speak to anything other than the sleep-related uses and conditions where it may be contraindicated. A search on "melatonin antioxidant" found 38 free NIH articles supporting melatonin's effectiveness. They are technical write-ups and speak more to laboratory testing than dosing levels as a supplement. Medical News Today states: A usual dose in adults is 1–5 milligrams (mg)Trusted Source, depending on the use, but doses can vary from 0.5 to 10 mg. In some cases, a low dose may work better than a high dose. A small dose of around 0.3 mg is similar to the amount that the body naturally produces. Larger doses cause much higher levels of melatonin in the blood. Nature.com/Cell Health & Disease has another such study that's readable by the layman. I may see if I can find a lower dosage pill than 5mg, but I still don't know the threshold required to derive the antioxidant benefits.
The book I am reading said that you can try taking it up to 3-4 hours before bedtime, rather than the usual half hour or hour before going to bed. I also use those blue-blocking glasses at night when I am reading online. I just started the book, but apparently for treating someone with a serious illness, like a cancer patient, they may give them a dose of several hundred mg at one time. Since it is a natural hormone that our bodies are designed to make , we make different amounts at different times, depending on whether we are stressed or not, because it helps a lot when a person is stressed, and also for depression and anxiety.
That is when I started taking it; I couldn't "turn off" my mind at night; melatonin helped me rest. After I read that it can block some cancer cells I just kept taking it. No big deal.
Everyone has something to say, some say stuff that is so off from what others say. I don't take my little dose longer than an hr before time to sleep....but one NEEDS to take it before as many don't know this and take it right at sleep time and they are awake.......too long...It's not gotten into your body to work...
I'm 4 days into cutting a 1mg pill in half, and it seems to be working well. This is 1/10th the dose of the 5mg I stopped taking. The best part is this is available at my local Walmart. I get 120 tablets for under $5...and I cut them in half! I still troll the web to find a recommended minimum dose for the antioxidant benefits.
So how did you intentionally build up to larger doses, Yvonne? Did the 3mg stop working as well? I commented that a 5mg dose knocked me on my butt the next day, and 1/2mg works fine. I suspect that higher doses=greater health benefit, and wonder if I might build up a tolerance.
Different people do fine with different amounts. Back when I was taking the 3 mg, it didn’t even affect my son, and he had to take 6 mg for it to help him sleep better. Over the years, I just gradually increased the dose as I felt I needed more because my own body was producing less. When I read the book , “Melatonin Miracle”, it explained about all of the health benefits and anti-aging benefits, so I actually wanted to take as much as I could without it leaving me drowsy the next day. Amazon has several books about the helpfulness of melatonin in our lives. Since it is a natural hormone produced all our life by our body, and lots of it when we are babies, there are really no problems with taking more of it, except it making you feel drowsy in the morning if you have more than you need. Doctors give people doses of over 100 mg when they need it for medical reasons, so there is no worry about side effects. I have been taking a 5 mg pill with my night meds for my heart, and then the 10 mg about a half hour before bedtime, when Bobby takes his, and I am thinking of bumping that up to 20 mg .
One of the side effects can be to sleep through the need to visit the bathroom. Sometimes melatonin will have you sleep so soundly that you don't answer the call of nature and wet the bed
How a body can handle a High dose, is a mystery...I get a oood night sleep with 1/4mg and learned a llong while ago, take Melatonin about an HOUR before ready for sleep. I sleep deep a lot of the time and bathroom needs wake me up.... I take fairly high doses of magnesium thru the day and that could keep my body in a more relaxed state so less melatonin works good...
Our body makes melatonin, from the time we are born, and when we are young, our body makes a lot of it, because it does SO much more than just help a person sleep well. When we have a baby, then our body makes even more melatonin that goes in the mother’s milk supply for the baby. So, our body is used to operating with an adequate amount of this hormone. Like many other hormones, as we get older, our body does not do as well at making our needed hormones, and if we have a thyroid imbalance, then that can make hormone production even worse. Since melatonin has so many benefits for our body, especially anti-aging and against dementia, I want to keep my body using as much as I can for the health benefits. I actually sleep just fine whether I take melatonin or not, so that is not a critical concern for me.
Same here. I have a bottle to use up so I take it as a matter of habit, but when I don't I can still doze off easily.