I have no medical background, but I do like sleep....
Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland in the brain. It lets the body know that it is dark outside. Melatonin directs the body to prepare for sleep.
You can help encourage the sleep enducing effects of your body's natural melatonin by staying away from bright lights in the late evening before you sleep. Getting a good dose of bright light early in the morning when you rise helps re-affirm the body's natural melatonin cycle ( low level melatonin in morning, high level in evening ).
If you decide to try ingesting melatonin, you only need a very low dose for it to have an effect on your biological clock ( up to 0.5 milligrams for the average adult ). Melatonin can constrict blood vessels, so it should not be taken regularly or in large doses.
You should be aware that caffeine has a half-life in the bloodstream of between 3 and 7 hours. Therefore, a typical caffeine drink with 100 milligrams of caffeine will leave you with around 50 milligrams of caffeine floating around five hours later. Five more hours and you will still have roughly 25 milligrams. The exact effects depend on a person's age and their caffeine tolerance.
Then there's the really obvious stuff - avoid any potentially stressful stuff before you go to sleep eg, don't catch up on lot's of unread email just before bed time and don't think of it as a good time to fill out your tax return, etc. Distractions from other people who stay up later than you are bad enough, but you don't want to encourage your own mental distractions.
Sleep well ! John
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