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Summary: I’m trying to sleep longer, but am waking up too early in the morning. I’d like to test some interventions to sleep longer (including melatonin) and am looking for advice.
Over the past 5 weeks, I’ve been making an effort to get more sleep. I’ve been able to hit an average time asleep of ~7h and, qualitatively, I’ve been feeling a lot less tired and have been able to concentrate better in the afternoons.
I’d like to see if sleeping even longer will result in further improvement. However, over the last week I’ve noticed that I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier (before my morning alarm). I stay in bed (eyes closed) until the alarm, but can’t go back to sleep.
Based on my data so far, there’s no clear correlation with time I fell asleep or total time asleep. Might be a correlation with heart rate variability, but I need more data to be sure.
I’d like to test some interventions to sleep longer. I already exercise in the evenings and for as long as I’m willing to do (~30 min. high intensity, 5-10 min. stretching), my last meal is 4h before going to bed, and my CGM does not show a consistent rise in blood sugar before waking up.
The only thought I had was to try melatonin. It’s typically used to control when you go to sleep, but it last long enough in the bloodstream that it might impact time asleep as well.
Plan:
- Self-blinded study using melatonin placed inside placebo capsules
- Concentrations: 0, 0.3, 3 mg (random assignment)
- Duration: 4 weeks
Questions:
- Anyone else have the same problem? What has worked for you to sleep later?
- Any other suggestions for interventions to try?
- Any comments or critiques on the melatonin experimental design?
- Is random assignment by day sufficient or do I need to block by a longer time period, use washout days, etc.?
– QD
