Case study: Melatonin

gwern

I discuss melatonin's effects on sleep & its safety; I segue into the general benefits of sleep and the severely disrupted sleep of the modern Western world, the cost of melatonin use and the benefit (eg. enforcing regular bedtimes), followed by a basic cost-benefit analysis of melatonin concluding that the net profit is large enough to be worth giving it a try barring unusual conditions or very pessimistic safety estimates.

Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin

I discuss melatonin's effects on sleep & its safety; I segue into the general benefits of sleep and the severely disrupted sleep of the modern Western world, the cost of melatonin use and the benefit (eg. enforcing regular bedtimes), followed by a basic cost-benefit analysis of melatonin concluding that the net profit is large enough to be worth giving it a try barring unusual conditions or very pessimistic safety estimates.

Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin

Don't teenagers have brain-chemistry that makes them have trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable hour? I'm not finding a good reference, but I remember reading that, and that the effect doesn't apply to children.

Roughly one-quarter of the kids fell into the borderline-acceptable category, meaning they reported eight hours of shuteye nightly. The overwhelming majority fell short — with 30.2 percent reporting seven hours, 22.8 percent slumbering closer to six hours, 10 percent catching a mere five hours of sleep, and 5.9 percent claiming to nod off for no more than four hours most weeknights. Just the thought makes me yawn. Certainly, schools don’t help the situation by starting classes earlier for teens than they do for younger kids — even though puberty and other

... (read more)

2byrnema16y

I remember. It was a very high-profile study that asserted a phase-delay in the teenage sleep cycle. The study was cited for a while in arguments to shift the school day later by a couple hours.

29

Case study: Melatonin

29

29

29

Case study: Melatonin

29

29