This is a very important paragraph from quern's article
> There are few to no side-effects to melatonin use in adults (there is uncertainty about the risks & benefits in children & adolescents28), and it is not addictive or habit-forming like caffeine is. The usual dose for a night is 0.5-3 mg and I take 1.5mg [29]; my dose is highly likely to be too high. High doses may well be responsible for why some people try melatonin and report that it does nothing or hurts them, since in one study, the best dose for old people was 10x smaller (0.1mg or 0.3mg) and for one blind person, 0.5mg [30 31 32] . Zhdanova et al 1996 found 0.3mg & 1.0mg to affect sleep onset similarly. A study of delayed-release melatonin found with their high dose of 4mg (but not 0.4mg) elevated melatonin levels 10 hours after bedtime ( Gooneratne et al 2011) - potentially interfering with waking time.
It is difficult to find doses as small as 1mg sublingual (dissolve under the tongue) in my area. Everyone is trying to sell you 5-30mg chewables. And, I expect everyone is buying them under the assumption that more is better. But, here it explicitly is not.
The way melatonin works well for me is to wait until I'm already settled into bed and should be asleep, but I'm not. Do a couple body scans to relax for real. Try to think about something mindless. Then if I'm still awake, pop 1mg under my tongue. I'll usually wake in the morning with half of it drooled on my pillow :P
I've had the same problem finding low-dose melatonin in brick-and-mortar stores, but Natrol sells a 1mg dissolving tablet on Amazon. If I need a sleep aid, I break it in half for a ~0.5mg dose, chew it with my front teeth, then hold it under my tongue for a bit before swallowing what's left.
It usually takes 15-30 minutes before I get noticeably drowsy, but I feel no more groggy the next day than if I slept sober.
For low dose melatonin, try liquid melatonin. Around here Sprouts carries it, but you gotta look a bit to find it. The bottle says 30 drop equal 3mg. So you can take small doses easily, and it absorbs under your tongue pretty quickly.
most bricke and mortar should have at least 1mg tablets, and you can break those in half. or break a 3mg into 3rds. not perfect but should work.
From your description it may be acting as a placebo -- the act of putting the pill into your mouth is what tells your subconscious to activate a sleep cycle.
Placebos are actually very effective for improving sleep
If you call it a ritual instead of a placebo it suddenly sounds much more credible.
Don’t jinx it
placebo works whether you believe or not and even if you know.
They are very powerful.
Natrol makes a 1mg gummy and Vitafusion has a peach flavored 1.5mg gummy (sold as “3mg” but the dose is “two gummies.” My kids use these. I get them on Amazon.
It's a bit harder to find, but I've had a good experience with liquid melatonin. Each drop contains like 0.1mg, so it's easy to dial in the small dose that you need.
Long-term use of high dosage (5-10 mg) of melatonin gave me painful stiff neck and shoulders and muscle spasm.
Go get children's melatonin gummies and cut it in half. Problem solved.
fyi, Whole Foods sells liquid melatonin. bottle says 30 drops contains 3mg so I only take a couple drops at night and it does the trick for me.
it's easy to find 0.3mg melatonin online.