I have an alarm that goes off at 8:30 pm, at which point I begin winding down my computer use, and eventually switch to reading under a red light for approximately 30 minutes, then I go to bed.
There are people who have success taking melatonin 30 minutes before they want to go to bed, because that makes them tired enough to want to go to bed once it kicks in. This does not work for me because my ability to resist fatigue is greater than melatonin’s ability to fatigue me, but I expect it’s worth trying, and is likely to help with building up the previous suggestion as a habit.
There are general-purpose self-modification techniques to shift your preferences and habits, and I think restedness is important enough to pull out the big guns. (Commitment contacts, daily affirmations, hypnosis, etc.)
Worth noting that a medical prescribing app lots of doctors use (blanking on the specific one, saw it a few months ago, possibly Epocrates) suggests taking melatonin more like 2-4 hours before sleep, so this parameter may be worth experimenting on.
I recall Eliezer discussing the MetaMed report for him suggesting taking it 5 hours before he wanted to go to sleep, but that was in large part because of his delayed sleep phase disorder. This Reddit thread suggests that 2 hours and 20-30 minutes are both commonly suggested, so agreed that experimentation is likely a good idea.
I have an alarm that goes off at 8:30 pm, at which point I begin winding down my computer use, and eventually switch to reading under a red light for approximately 30 minutes, then I go to bed.
There are people who have success taking melatonin 30 minutes before they want to go to bed, because that makes them tired enough to want to go to bed once it kicks in. This does not work for me because my ability to resist fatigue is greater than melatonin’s ability to fatigue me, but I expect it’s worth trying, and is likely to help with building up the previous suggestion as a habit.
There are general-purpose self-modification techniques to shift your preferences and habits, and I think restedness is important enough to pull out the big guns. (Commitment contacts, daily affirmations, hypnosis, etc.)
Worth noting that a medical prescribing app lots of doctors use (blanking on the specific one, saw it a few months ago, possibly Epocrates) suggests taking melatonin more like 2-4 hours before sleep, so this parameter may be worth experimenting on.
I recall Eliezer discussing the MetaMed report for him suggesting taking it 5 hours before he wanted to go to sleep, but that was in large part because of his delayed sleep phase disorder. This Reddit thread suggests that 2 hours and 20-30 minutes are both commonly suggested, so agreed that experimentation is likely a good idea.