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Comment by kszxgz | Hacker News Reader

"According to the new book Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, the sleep people get on sleeping pills like Ambien is not true sleep. Drugs like these simply “switch off the top of your cortex, the top of your brain,” he explained to New York Magazine, “and put you into a state of unconsciousness.” That’s not sleep; that’s cryogenics. According to Walker, sleeping-pill sleep doesn’t have the same restorative powers—and there are lots, from an immune boost to emotional resilience—as good, old-fashioned zzzzs."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/better-th...

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Does that apply to Melatonin pills? It seems like a more "normal" way to get your brain to sleep than Ambien.

No, melatonin is the actual thing your body produces to go to sleep.

However, having used it, if your brain chemistry is sufficiently screwed up, you may find it hard to wake up fully if you don't also take Co q 10 in the morning. That's the coenzyme for melatonin. It wakes you up.

Brain chemistry stuff was disproved ages ago. There is no such thing as chemical imbalance.

A. I took enough (prescription) drugs for enough years that it isn't possible I got through that without deranging my brain in some manner. In fact, I think different, I dream different etc. I'm absolutely positive my brain was permanently altered by the experience.

B. After all those drugs, I was incapable of sleeping well. In a nutshell, I fixed this with several years of Co q 10 in the morning, melatonin at night. I sleep pretty well most nights these days.

C. Every time someone tells me I imagined the whole thing and it is placebo effect, my sons have a good chuckle about how that must make me the most powerful psychic on the planet that I apparently cured myself solely with the power of some idiotic, unscientific belief. (Darth Vader, fear me!)

I don't see why anyone should doubt your observations about the quality of your sleep over time. You've surely paid closer attention than they have, what with it being your sleep. Causality is harder to prove though. Was it really long-term conditioning through melatonin and Coq10? I moved to a new apartment recently and my sleep improved. I thought it might be because of a brand new, very clean aircon. Then my sleep got worse again with nothing else obvious changing. Who knows what confounding variables may exist. Stress, diet, season, etc.

As for the theory of placebo effect (where a placebo actually has some type of therapeutic impact), I don't think we've really concluded whether it exists or not -- I'm not a doctor but my understanding is that there is evidence in both directions and the debate is ongoing.

I did a lot of other things too. That wasn't all I did.

But I was able to successfully alter my circadian rhythm on short notice when I worked the night shift and had to occasionally show up for the day shift by using Co q 10 in the morning and melatonin at night and making no other changes. So I'm absolutely certain this combo can move the needle on the circadian rhythm in specific.

Are you saying that there are no hormones that affect brain function? Or that all people's bodies are always perfect at regulating those hormones? Either way, that is a completely crazy thing to suggest.

I am saying that brain is not a bucket full of chemicals that need to have right balance.

Disproven is a strong word, trying to type on a cellphone with your elbow is a more apt description, not to mention blaming everything on "chemistry imbalance"

But yeah, Melatonin do induce sleep (if it's a good sleep is probably debatable, and it's definitely not my first choice)

You are likely taking more than the appropriate 0.3mg dose and too late in the evening, if it's giving you a hangover.

No, I was taking less than the recommended dose. My brain was just borked.

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