Speaking from personal experience, I know that one of the obstacles to sleeping well is going to sleep at all. Even though one knows that one ought to go to bed on time, and that not doing so will cause problems, it’s hard to actually do it. One wants to finish the book, chat with friends, play a game, etc. It is even more difficult when one doesn’t feel tired. For me, I had a chronic akrasia problem with going to sleep; in college, it was bad enough that I would on occasion stay up to 4 AM for no reason at all!
How do we deal with this? The classic mechanism is avoiding the choice entirely. … We can do this simply by waiting until the need to sleep is so strong we can no longer resist; and in practice, many (especially college students) do just this. But few of us have the luxury of the bizarre schedule this entails. We could try some sort of monetary fine for not going to bed by midnight, but enforcement is difficult and if you’re a college student, you may not be able to afford a vow painful enough to deter you.
Melatonin allows us a different way of raising the cost, a physiological & self-enforcing way. Half an hour before we plan to go to sleep, we take a pill. The procrastinating effect will not work—half an hour is so far away that our decision-making process & willpower are undistorted and can make the right decision (viz. following the schedule). When the half-hour is up, the melatonin has begun to make us sleepy. Staying awake ceases to be free, to be the default option; now it is costly to fight the melatonin and remain awake.
If you’re someone who doesn’t struggle with falling asleep, but merely with going to bed, I strongly recommend at least trying a 0.3 mg melatonin dose for a fortnight. This hasn’t worked for everyone I know, but it increased my average sleep time by maybe 30 minutes per night. If you have a biology like mine, you might really benefit.
My experience of taking melatonin a few hours before bed is very similar to what Gwern described as the self-discipline benefit:
If you’re someone who doesn’t struggle with falling asleep, but merely with going to bed, I strongly recommend at least trying a 0.3 mg melatonin dose for a fortnight. This hasn’t worked for everyone I know, but it increased my average sleep time by maybe 30 minutes per night. If you have a biology like mine, you might really benefit.