pros: if you take it, you will fall asleep 30-60 minutes later. nothing else I’ve tried has been as reliable at making sure I definitely fall asleep, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t destroy my sleep quality. especially at 10mg, you can feel it knocking you out, and you basically can’t power through it even if you want to. it’s a bit scary but all powerful sleep drugs are at least a bit scary and often a lot more scary. I generally take 5mg instead.
cons: it doesn’t do anything to keep you asleep; if your body doesn’t really want to sleep, you will wake up 2 hours later fully alert. it also doesn’t do anything to shift your sleep schedule. these facts combined mean that if you try to use lemborexant for jet lag / shifting sleep earlier, then your life will suck indefinitely until you stop using lemborexant. my current recipe is to only use lemborexant when it’s near enough to my normal bedtime, and I use melatonin 3 hours before bed to slowly move sleep schedule earlier (later requires no special effort)
(potentially this also means lemborexant can be used to get nice 2 hour daytime naps? I have enough fear of god sleep drugs that I feel hesitant to try any kind of hack like this)
(not medical advice. not a doctor, and even if I was a doctor I’m not your doctor, and even if I was your doctor I wouldn’t be communicating to you via lesswrong shortforms)
sadly don’t have any lemborexant, so can’t compare; i originally picked daridorexant naively due to its shorter half-life, thinking this corresponded to less daytime tiredness.
my naive understanding was actually also that lemborexant should be the one better at keeping you asleep, so it’s interesting to hear that it doesn’t seem to do that at all for you.
thoughts on lemborexant
pros: if you take it, you will fall asleep 30-60 minutes later. nothing else I’ve tried has been as reliable at making sure I definitely fall asleep, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t destroy my sleep quality. especially at 10mg, you can feel it knocking you out, and you basically can’t power through it even if you want to. it’s a bit scary but all powerful sleep drugs are at least a bit scary and often a lot more scary. I generally take 5mg instead.
cons: it doesn’t do anything to keep you asleep; if your body doesn’t really want to sleep, you will wake up 2 hours later fully alert. it also doesn’t do anything to shift your sleep schedule. these facts combined mean that if you try to use lemborexant for jet lag / shifting sleep earlier, then your life will suck indefinitely until you stop using lemborexant. my current recipe is to only use lemborexant when it’s near enough to my normal bedtime, and I use melatonin 3 hours before bed to slowly move sleep schedule earlier (later requires no special effort)
(potentially this also means lemborexant can be used to get nice 2 hour daytime naps? I have enough fear of
godsleep drugs that I feel hesitant to try any kind of hack like this)(not medical advice. not a doctor, and even if I was a doctor I’m not your doctor, and even if I was your doctor I wouldn’t be communicating to you via lesswrong shortforms)
have you tried daridorexant?
haven’t tried it. have you found it to be better?
sadly don’t have any lemborexant, so can’t compare; i originally picked daridorexant naively due to its shorter half-life, thinking this corresponded to less daytime tiredness.
my naive understanding was actually also that lemborexant should be the one better at keeping you asleep, so it’s interesting to hear that it doesn’t seem to do that at all for you.