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Taking Melatonin for all nighters and sleep questions

melatonin sleep hallucinations

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#1 shifter

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Posted 08 June 2016 - 12:59 AM


Sometimes, I work all day, followed by a 2nd job all night, then returning to the all day job and back to an all night job. It is a 12 hour day job and 8 hour night job. There is no time to sleep. Just go home, eat and go back to work. Literally no moments of unconsciousness and under artificial lights pretty much the whole time.

 

My question is, would my body prefer to get melatonin for when I'm pulling the night shifts? (Because it would have got it if I went to bed instead) I did take a 3mg time released one last night as I'm currently doing these shifts this week. It doesn't seem to make me sleepy though (in fact I was able to get home early and lay in bed for half an hour but could not fall asleep as my mind is too active).

 

I'll be honest though. After the night shift and going back to the day job and repeating this, mentally I feel as 'normal' as if I had the sleep. Last time it took to the 4th day without good sleep (~1 hour 'attempted nap' in car between jobs) to feel like crap at certain periods throughout the day and ONLY if it were times of no stimulus (eg just standing or sitting with nothing to do). Go for a walk, feel normal. No micro sleeps driving either. Brain knew when to keep alert :) I did not take melatonin during that time at all though.

 

So in short, is taking melatonin at the usual dose of 3mg or less beneficial when pulling all nighters or is it harmful as the body is not used to having this hormone at the same time as being awake and under lights. I don't care if the only drawback was that I were to feel sleepy, to me that's not a reason to not do it if it has other benefits (I don't feel extra sleepy on it anyway).

 

I've also read some people take it and deliberately stay awake with coffee to get hallucinations. I have not ever found this in my case. However a few days without sleep is what is enough for me to get auditory hallucinations (in a dead quiet room). It's as if there is a radio in the background somewhere but the voices or music is too muffled to 'understand' what is being said.

 

And why are some people 'non functional' or 'feel like a zombie' if they don't get their '8 hours' sleep but it takes me at least 4-5 days without it before I would feel that way. Are some people just wired to require sleep every night to function? I am 34 by the way but even the first time I would do an all night after being awake the whole day, I would 'feel fine'.

 

 


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#2 joelcairo

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Posted 08 June 2016 - 04:37 PM

First of all, you're killing yourself doing this. If you're doing this for an extremely specific period of time, for example a medical residency, then you can probably get through it OK, but it's not something you should attempt longterm. Anyway melatonin does make you drowsy, so to my mind using it would be a better way of recovering when you do have time to sleep.


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#3 airplanepeanuts

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Posted 08 June 2016 - 07:16 PM

People are different that way. You might loose the ability to stay up for multiple days in a row when you get older.

 



#4 aconita

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Posted 08 June 2016 - 09:55 PM

I might be thick but I am not getting why you are taking melatonin.

 

Melatonin likely have some beneficial effects but doesn't substitute a good night of sleep by any means, it is actually meant to trigger it to happen.

 

It might make sense if you do get some sleep but if you do stay awake anyway I don't get the point.

 

Melatonin supplementation during awake time might impair vision since naturally occurs when light goes off and vision is not required anymore.

 

I don't even comment about spending days in a row without sleeping but just out of curiosity: is it really worth?

 

 

 

 


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#5 shifter

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Posted 09 June 2016 - 12:49 AM

Due to the cost of living here in Oz and the ridiculous price of houses coupled with an interest rate of more than 4% and average salaries which fall far short of housing being affordable, I need more than 1 income occasionally to be able to enjoy life or get on with projects I need doing around the house and backyard or fund an overseas holiday or get ahead in the mortgage repayments for a safety net. Oh yeah and I have a wife. The night job is worth a lot of money. And it's easy money. It's not a chronic thing. It's like the 3rd or 4th time this year I've done night shifts and day shifts together for less than a week at a time so I take advantage of the opportunity. I was just curious if melatonin supplementation would offset some of the 'damage?' caused by the body not producing its own during the body clocks cycle. Given I don't feel drowsy after taking it, I figured why not if no harm?

 

Is there a relationship between melatonin and the circadian rhythms? Even if I felt like crap during the night for taking melatonin but staying awake, would my day job feel a little easier because the rhythm is not out of whack or confused? I'm not sure, just wondering.

 

Some people are lucky to have jobs which pay great and offer awesome work/life balance. But others have to either work normal hours but be poor and paying rent to someone else's house, or put in lots of extra hours so they can get things they want, a house and provide the kind of future and life to their kids that they didn't have themselves.

 

 

 

 


Edited by shifter, 09 June 2016 - 12:56 AM.

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#6 aconita

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Posted 09 June 2016 - 01:27 AM

It surprises me to hear that from you!

 

Oz has become one of the most expensive countries in the world if not the most expensive but I imagined salaries would be adequate to a great lifestyle, as it was used to be when I did visit in the early '90s.

 

Must be the wife...:)

 

In your case I doubt melatonin supplementing will be of much help, maybe causing more harm than good.

 

I am not an endocrinologist but as far as my knowledge goes melatonin is released when blue light wave length fades, red spectrum becomes prevalent and intensity diminish to darkness.

 

At dawn the light is very blue, at sunset very red, that leads to a circadian rhythm which implicates an hormonal cascade starting from melatonin release by the pineal gland (the third eye, still visible in certain animals) but that hormonal cascade makes sense if you fall asleep, like regulating blood pressure appropriately for that, for example.

 

Taking melatonin and not sleeping is likely to generate a mess which I doubt would be helpful, in fact I doubt you'll feel great.

 

Besides that melatonin is a powerful antioxidant especially at mitochondrial level and that is good, of course, but I am still worried about triggering an hormonal state intended for sleep and actually not sleeping but working.

 

Melatonin would be great to restore an appropriate circadian rhythm that has been disrupted but that means going to sleep when you should and being awake when appropriate, by itself taking melatonin doesn't mitigate the lack of sleep, only sleep is able to do what sleep does.  

 

What about changing wife? :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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#7 yates9

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Posted 12 June 2016 - 10:28 AM

Melatonin and other hormones are organised in a connected cascade that affect the rhythm of all your organs. I don't think its good for you to try to constantly reprogram this cascade by taking melatonin...

you should instead consider i think..
https://en.m.wikiped...olyphasic_sleep





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