The age old question I hear a lot is how much melatonin should i take?
I’ll answer that below but I feel like I need to bring something up that I hear a lot in the quantum health community or even the “mainstream” alternative health community. I need to get this off my chest…
For a long time I bought into the idea that since melatonin is an endogenous hormone that my own body creates and as a result I shouldn’t be supplementing it. The argument is that taking exogenous melatonin disrupts the “atomic organization of intracellular organelles“. I’m still searching for studies (conducted under sunlight of course) to back up these claims.
If I do find them and they are conclusive, then I’d consider not taking exogenous melatonin. Until then I’ll be making sure to make it from diet and light and take it via supplementation.
I hear this said a lot…”if your body makes it, you shouldn’t take it“. Even Jack Lalanne once said, “if man makes it, I don’t eat it“.
I get the sentiment but we’ve lost nuance.
Can I take 3 ingredients and “make” something to eat that’s healthy?
Of course I can.
Can I process a food and still have it be good for me?
Of course I can.
How about processing acorns and making a flour?
Technically that’s a “processed food” that according to Jack, I shouldn’t eat.
It’s foolish to think that I shouldn’t eat something just because man made it. There’s much more nuance to food and health that needs to be looked at.
And as far as “if my body makes it, I’m shouldn’t take it”.
That sounds good but falls apart as well.
How about enzymes?
Did you know it’s possible to assault our body with chemicals and toxins that damage our organs which in turn don’t create enzymes anymore? That is possible and it happens a lot as we age. Eating a SAD diet will accelerate that process.
What about hydrochloric acid?
As we age we produce less of it. There are a lot of reasons for that (like GMOs in food, heavy metals etc) but when you supplement HCL, your body is then able to utilize and absorb vitamins, minerals and nutrients better which results in better health.
What about magnesium?
In our body we have something called the “magnesium pump” which (when working) allows magnesium to get inside the cell where its concentrations should be roughly 16x greater than what’s outside the cell.
Over time due to toxins and chemical burdens that magnesium pump “breaks” which prevents magnesium from getting inside the cell, where it belongs.
It turns out that getting a “magnesium push” of injected magnesium into your cutaneous tissue (not a magnesium IV) in concentrated amounts turns on that pump and now magnesium is able to get inside your cell.
When that happens, the pump continues to work and allow magnesium to get where it needs to get (this explains why many people who take magnesium do not see benefits) for optimal health.
Sometimes eating man made things can be healthy.
Sometimes consuming isolated supplements like magnesium and melatonin can be absolute game changers.
Melatonin Isn’t A Sleeping Pill
One thing I want to get out in the open is that melatonin isn’t a sleeping pill. People take it to sleep but it’s more of a circadian rhythm regulating hormone more than it is a sleeping pill like Ambien, Nyquil or Tylenol PM.
Melatonin is a powerful hormone your body makes in response to your 24 hour day light cycles. It’s called your diurnal rhythm.
Melatonin has been shown to help with cancers (like colon, lung, pancreatic, breast, brain, prostate etc), oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, radiation exposure, slowing metastasis, blood sugar, and so much more.
Many people still think melatonin is some kind of sleep aid, far from it.
It is the most powerful antioxidant you could ever take.
How Much Melatonin Should I Take?
Most people start taking melatonin as a sleep aid and for that the most common dosages are around 1mg to 10mg. But once you understand just how powerful melatonin is, you might want to start taking more of it.
A lot more.
I’m going to refer to the work of Dr. Frank Shallenberger, Dr. Russel Reiter, Dr. Doris Loh and Dr. Walter Pierpaoli. To me, these are the folks I’m listening to and learning from when it comes to how much melatonin I should take every day.
I’m also going to post some videos below that you might find interesting that goes into more detail about how much melatonin is okay to take.
Just note I’m not a doctor, I’m just sharing my research on melatonin dosing and what I’m doing. I’m currently taking 50mg of melatonin per night. That’s a relatively low dose if you can believe it.
Some people like Doris Loh take thousands of milligrams of melatonin per day and night. If you feel groggy or tired in the morning it usually means you didn’t take enough because the “exhaust” created from upregulated mitochondrial function can sometimes be tiredness.
When this happens I like to take some P5P with breakfast and get direct sun on as much of my body as I can. Then the excess melatonin gets metabolized and cortisol will rise due to proper UV and IR light exposure to the morning sunlight.
Now here are the videos below that I would highly recommend you watch in their entirety.
On the other hand Dr. Doris Loh and Dr. Russel Reiter focus more on oxidative stress and mitochondrial health with melatonin. Higher doses of melatonin can be applied to, dementia, cancer and viral diseases with pretty amazing results.
Both Loh and Reiter talk about taking much higher doses of melatonin daily.
Research shows that doses of up to 40 mg per day can effectively support conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation. In some cases—such as with brain tumors, colorectal cancer, and breast cancer—patients not only respond better to therapy but also report improved quality of life when melatonin is added to their regimen.
I came across a long-term study with ALS patients, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, where they used a high daily dose of 300 mg of melatonin for two years, and it was actually well-tolerated. What’s interesting is that this dose helped lower a major marker of oxidative stress—something that’s usually high in ALS patients :(. What this says to me is that melatonin could have a protective effect on the nervous system by keeping oxidative stress in check.
I found this crossover study where 12 healthy men were given a high dose of 100 mg of melatonin intravenously to see how it would affect them. Surprisingly, they had no adverse effects, and the higher dose didn’t make them any more drowsy than a standard 10 mg dose would. That’s the #1 question I get, doesn’t melatonin make you tired? My answer is that the tiredness goes away the more you take!
In one study, five adults were given 1,000 mg of melatonin each night for about 25 to 30 days. The main side effect they experienced was drowsiness, but aside from that, there were no serious or lasting changes in their health markers, like blood pressure, heart rate, ECG, blood tests, or urine analysis. This shows that even at this extremely high dose, melatonin didn’t cause any significant or harmful impacts.
Where To Buy High Dose Melatonin
I get mine from Mitolife in the 50 mg capsules.
Conclusion
I hope that at the very least this article about how much melatonin to take helped you realize there’s much more to melatonin than it helping sleep. There seems to be no issue with taking very high doses (always check with your doctor though) and it’s something that I’ll continue to increase the dosing as I age.
Questions:
- Do you take melatonin?
- How much do you take and when do you take it?
- How long have you taken it for?
- If you don’t take it, can you still sleep?
- What overall results have you noticed?
Comment below!
