I stopped taking melatonin because I’d wake up extremely groggy. Although I also have a (bad?) habit of covering my eyes with a pillow or the corner of a blanket AND I have a light blocking shade in my room, so I was basically waking up in complete darkness. One thing I considered to counteract this was plugging a lamp into a “vacation” timer and having it fire up around 7a or 8a or so. I think I’ll stop at the hardware store and give the whole setup, melatonin and all, another try after reading this post.
Here’s a thought: use the melatonin and wrap a scarf around your head before going to bed, but leave the shade up or loose. The melatonin & scarf will put you to sleep, and sunrise around 6 or 7 will slowly wake you up, since by then the melatonin will have run out and your scarf will have come off.
Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, for the last couple of days, I’ve been taking about half the dose I tried last year, and I’ve had the shade open a bit—the little bit of light it lets in at night doesn’t seem to bug me as much as it used to. It seems to be working in terms of moving the time I wake up a bit each day, and not so much grogginess. I know Less Wrong isn’t Erowid, but I think my experience trying melatonin sublingually, which is something that was suggested in one of the other comments, might be interesting—IT BURNS! And now the underside of my tongue itches, which is not even something I knew was possible before. As a guess, this is my fault, as a quick search shows there are actually lozenges that are meant to be taken this way, instead of the usual swallowed tablets.
I stopped taking melatonin because I’d wake up extremely groggy. Although I also have a (bad?) habit of covering my eyes with a pillow or the corner of a blanket AND I have a light blocking shade in my room, so I was basically waking up in complete darkness. One thing I considered to counteract this was plugging a lamp into a “vacation” timer and having it fire up around 7a or 8a or so. I think I’ll stop at the hardware store and give the whole setup, melatonin and all, another try after reading this post.
Here’s a thought: use the melatonin and wrap a scarf around your head before going to bed, but leave the shade up or loose. The melatonin & scarf will put you to sleep, and sunrise around 6 or 7 will slowly wake you up, since by then the melatonin will have run out and your scarf will have come off.
Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, for the last couple of days, I’ve been taking about half the dose I tried last year, and I’ve had the shade open a bit—the little bit of light it lets in at night doesn’t seem to bug me as much as it used to. It seems to be working in terms of moving the time I wake up a bit each day, and not so much grogginess. I know Less Wrong isn’t Erowid, but I think my experience trying melatonin sublingually, which is something that was suggested in one of the other comments, might be interesting—IT BURNS! And now the underside of my tongue itches, which is not even something I knew was possible before. As a guess, this is my fault, as a quick search shows there are actually lozenges that are meant to be taken this way, instead of the usual swallowed tablets.