Natrol Melatonin Sleep Supplement - Fall Asleep Fast, Drug-Free, Time Release - 90 Tablets

We've been using this for 9 years and still love it!
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Finally found it. You really don't need 5mg of melatonin, which about the minimum you can find now-a-days. 1 mg, time released does the job because it works all night. And the best part is that you don't feel groggy in the morning. Highly recommend this superior product.
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I'd been using standard melatonin, which easy got me to sleep, but I was still waking in the middle of the night. This was with a 4mg nightly dose. So I purchased this time-release, hoping it would help me stay asleep.My experience was that it only worked like standard melatonin. It did nothing to help me stay asleep in the middle of the night. I will not be purchasing this again in the future.
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[updated after trying several more times with improved results]I had done a lot of experimenting with different timing/dosage of melatonin before trying this, so I had a pretty good sense for how any given pill was affecting me. In theory, a 1mg time-release pill should be exactly what I need (more on this below). YMMV, but for me, this pill takes too long to kick in, and then induces drowsiness too long. I don't feel much affect until 1-2 hours after taking it. A few times, I felt like it was still pretty intense when I needed to be waking up (about 8 hours in). Often, I can feel the affects lasting more than 8 hours. I've experimented with taking it 1h before bed instead of 20 minutes like the instructions say, and I think this helps. I still have to take a secondary, immediate-release pill (1mg) right before bed to fall asleep reasonably quickly. To be fair, unlike with an immediate-release pill, I can still feel its affects when I wake up halfway through the night to roll over, which is what I wanted, but it's not perfect; it's still taking some effort/experimenting to get the results I need.Before trying this tablet, I had been taking a regular melatonin pill divided into 0.5mg pieces twice per night---0.5mg before bed, and 0.5mg between sleep cycles (about 4 hours later). I had been doing this because I need help both falling asleep and staying asleep, and I only need a little melatonin to notice the affects. Taking 0.5mg twice worked ok for me, but the process of taking a pill in the middle of the night woke me up enough that it was harder to fall back asleep. Then I discovered this time-release 1mg tablet, which sounded ideal since I wouldn't have to take a second dose halfway through the night. However, this pill is not perfect, and you may have to do some experimenting to get the results you want, including supplementing with a fast-release pill at the beginning (see description above).
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I started really struggling with sleep in my mid-40s. I could fall asleep easily but would wake up at 2 or 3 am and couldn’t get back to sleep, and I tossed and turned a lot, got up to urinate a few times too. I’m a internal medicine physician and did tons of research about insomnia. Using hypnotics like Ambien is associated with increased mortality, and worsens your sleep architecture. Alcohol also worsens your sleep quality. Benadryl or Unisom have anticholingeric effects and are associated with the development of dementia. So I wanted to avoid all of these sleep aids. Lower dose melatonin has done WONDERS for me, along with treating sleep apnea and starting hormone replacement therapy (yes, before menopause). The physiologic dose of melatonin is about 300 mcg (or 1/3 of a mg), and I personally find that doses higher than about 2mg paradoxically worsen my sleep. I take this 1mg extended-release when I go to sleep, and then I take 0.5mg of an instant-release melatonin (1/2 a 1mg tab of the strawberry flavor from Natrol) when I wake up to pee around 2 or 3am, and it helps me get back to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours. I’ve tried other brands of melatonin but always come back to Natrol. If I take 300mcg or 0.5mg of instant release at bedtime, I am more awake when I get up to pee at 3am and then it takes me longer (up to an hour) to get back to sleep - but when I take this extended-release 1mg at bedtime it seems to help me return to sleep much more easily after that one middle-of-the-night awakening.If you are struggling with multiple nighttime awakens, consider asking for a sleep study to ensure you don’t have undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea — approximately 50% of postmenopausal women have it and most don’t know it. I was diagnosed w/ OSA despite having a normal bodyweight and not being a snorer (according to my husband). But I still struggled with sleep despite getting my OSA treated, and the combination of HRT and this Natrol melatonin have completely changed my life.
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