Anyone actually experience marked increased energy from NMN?

Michael The amount I take each night (it is almost invariably after midnight and before 8am) varies from 0 through to over 400mg.   Melatonin is a circadian hormone and it is important not to undermine the circadian cycle by taking it at the wrong times.

Michael melatonin has a wide range of effects. Some are immediate and some happen over a longer period. The time it is taken is critically important as to the effect.  Two suppliers provide suppositories with 200mg or 400mg, but i dont know the bioavailability. My priority when i take melatonin is to ensure i get good enough sleep in order to be fully functional the next day. I normally achieve this.  It does affect different people in different ways. I will often take it more than once during the night.

Michael yes 60 before bed and another 60 when i wake in middle of night

Paul Beauchemin that is fascinating. So 60 mg (not er I assume) before bed, and another 60mg when you wake up, as many of us do for a bathroom call. And that doesnt adversely affect your circadian rhythm? Sorry, I guess you already answered that.

Since I have difficulty returning to sleep, or when I do it is not of sufficient duration, that sounds very promising. My fear was that a large middle night dose would give me a hangover, but that hasnt been a problem? Did you need to keep increasing your dosage in order to get back to sleep or because you wanted to maximize other benefits?

Michael no the timing is key to this. My priority is good sleep, but i also take more for the side effects. I dont think taking it before sleep is helpful.  Sometimes I sleep well and take no melatonin. I am currently experimenting with some subtleties.

Michael only effect is deep sleep went from 30 min per night to 3 hours

feel great during the day

chuck stanley not for me. Seems I get a cortisol spike about half hour before I wake. One reason I've never needed coffee. No change at all with large dose melatonin.

Was taking 120 before bed. One issue I have had these past few years is waking in middle of night and not being able to fall back asleep. Saw a suggestion on Longecity to take a dose when I woke in middle of night and so I split the dose and it has made a huge difference

Paul Beauchemin 

     Are there any published studies indicating that taking Melatonin at the dose level of 120 mg or more is a good idea?  I thought that it was a hormone that was most effective at the ~1 mg dose level.  FYI, I take 3 mg of Life Extension's 6-hour time-release Melatonin at bedtime and sleep well through the night.

JGC The reason I take large amounts of melatonin is that I like the side effects.

I did a video about Melatonin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfEJcUDVUoo&t=153s

It is the case, however, that there is published research that Melatonin can demethylate the epigenome. (for Radishes, but the chemicals are the same).

I got into this because I took quite a bit of Melatonin for sleep and noticed I was growing dark hairs in places where I have  not had hair for a long time.  Only a few, but very gradually I am getting less bald mainly with the growth of a very fine layer or white hairs, but also some dark hairs.

I was not ever particularly concerned about hair loss as my father went bald and I expected to do this.  However, I see this as a sign of an improvement in cellular health more generally and I would like my organs to function well.

An interesting relevant point is high frequency hearing.  This is a specialised hair cell question that is easy to measure.  Sadly I did not measure this when I started.  However, I am 61 and can hear 14 kHz which is more of a 40s thing.

Melatonin is, however, a circadian hormone.  I am of the view that I want to go to sleep on endogenous Melatonin so I only take Melatonin when I wake up in the night.  I don't think it is a good idea to take it before going to bed.

More recently I have managed to kick the alcohol rebound into touch, but I need really to have more nights where I don't drink as ethanol is not good for health even if hedonistically it has merit.

John Hemming 

    Interesting. 

    I note the NIH says that the biovailability of Melatonin is about 15%, and it's solubility in water is about 0.1 mg/ml.  Therefore, there is not a strong reason to bother taking it sublingually, which will only give a bio-boost of 2 to 4.  My daily dose of 3 mg therefore delivers about 0.5 mg to the bloodstream, which is about right for a hormone.

    The Mayo Clinic says that the most common Melatonin side effects are headache, dizziness, nausea, and drowsiness (that's the point).  Less common side effects include short-lasting feelings of depression, mild tremor, mild anxiety, abdominal cramps, irritability, reduced alertness, confusion or disorientation, and abnormally low blood pressure (hypotension).  They also mention drug interactions with anticoagulants and anti-platelet drugs, anticonvulsants, contraceptive drugs, diabetes medications, and medications that suppress the immune system.

    Be careful.  I would think that taking a large dose like 120 mg per day might produce the chemical equivalent of jet lag, screwing up your circadian clock.

JGC Without going into the question of how you come to your conclusion. I can say experimentally it is not true.  However, it will vary from person to person.

JGC there are many studies that looked at high melatonin levels and cancer. I have PC and that is what interested me. The side effect of deep sleep is a pleasant surprise.

JGC no, none of these side effects for me (except longer deep sleep). I monitor 30 biometrics daily so quite noticeable if something changes.

I experimented with 1-10 mg for years and never improved my sleep until now.

John Hemming 

I've been taking 120 mg Melatonin now for about 2 months.  Started 4 months ago with 3, then 6, then 10, then 20, and so on until I reached 120.  The purpose is to control lutenizing hormone.  Jeff Bowles theorizes that excess lutenizing hormone causes Alzheimer's, and Melatonin can be used to reduce that excess.  See his ebook "Extreme Dose!  Melatonin The Miracle Anti-Aging hormone...", available in Kindle format at Amazon.

A bit of background on how I got to this point. 14 years ago I started taking TA-65 to slow telemere shortening.  One of the effects is particularly vivid dreaming.  Then I found out that TA-65 is cycloastragenol, which is available at much lower price.  So I ordered some powdered cycloastragenol and put it into capsules.  But in order to get the same dreaming effect with my DIY capsules I had to take about 5 times as much as the TA-65, which essentially wiped out the price advantage.  Then I discovered enteric effect capsules.  Enteric effect capsules filled with cycloastragenol seemed to be equally potent to TA-65 as measured by my dream-o-meter.  So I've taken about 45 mg of cycloastragenol in enteric capsules for the past 12 years or so.  Last few months I've been taking TAM818 capsules instead of the cycloastragenol.  Note also that I've taken 50,000 IU vitamin D3 daily for the same 14 years.

With the cycloastragenol my sleep pattern has been about 7-9 hours per night, with 1 or 2 wakenings.  Each wakening occurs with a dream, and resuming sleep is easy.

Add the 120 mg of Melatonin before going to bed and the pattern is the same.  Maybe a little more dreaming.  I've skipped the Melatonin on several occasions and there was no change in my pattern.  Still go to sleep normally, wake several times, and go back to sleep immediately.  Wakening seems to occur on 1 1/2 hour boundaries, like maybe 4 1/2 hours, 6 hours, and wake up for the day at 7 1/2 or 9 hours.

Haven't seen any bad side effects, and the potential of reducing Alzheimer's is good enough for me to continue.  I'm 77, male.  Women would take maybe 75 mg.
 

Paul Beauchemin There is a difficulty in that the side effects are difficult to spot as they occur gradually.  There is quite a bit of research, however, that justifies them.  The only one I can certainly say is melatonin is a reduction in gingivitis that occurs from taking it sublingually as this is an effect that can be seen by whether or not I take any melatonin that way. (and to some extent how much).   When I started growing hair where I had been bald for about 20 years I could not guarantee that this was melatonin, but there is research that points at this.  There are also issues about needing a combination of inputs to get an output.  If you are not getting the right K2 vitamins then maintaining bone structure will not be as easy.

RobH Without checking the research from memory I think there are a number of cognitive benefits from good sleep.  Which of those are really melatonin and which not affected is hard to determine.

Michael Thanks for that I only do videos where I think I have something to add to the debate rather than just a repetition of what someone else has said.

John Hemming excellent video. Several more reasons for me to take high doses in the papers cited.

Reducing the cortisol wakening effect is one thing I've been searching for without success. I have a very sharp response half-hour before waking which spikes my glucose. Melatonin has no effect on this.

Paul Beauchemin I also did a video about sleep hacks in which I talk about using Cox-1 inhibitors say about 1-2 hours before the CAR to minimise it or after it has happened to try to get back to sleep.  Asprin is the one with the most research, but Resveratrol is also a cox-1 inhibitor.

I also have an interesting experiment going on which I want to patent to get a lot more control on the CAR and the interplay between sleep and waking.  I would like to patent this so that if the pharma companies take up the idea some money goes back into n==1 self hacking research more generally.   I cannot get the patent if I publish the idea (before applying for the patent) so i you would like to try it it would be off forum on a confidential basis.   Once the final patent is applied for then I will publish the details anyway. 

John Hemming thanks, unfortunately, aspirin causes bleeding for me. Look forward to your experiment