When should I take melatonin?
It depends on the job. Tell it when you wake on a day off and what you want melatonin to do, and drag the wake handle round the ring to watch your evening slide.
Your own melatonin probably starts around 9:35pm.
To fall asleep faster by 11:30pm, take 0.5 to 1 mg between 8:30 and 10:30pm. 3 mg is plenty for most people, and 5 mg is the top.
- Lamps only from your window to bed, and no overhead lights.
- And check when your last coffee should be on caffeine.guide.
Your night
- Your own night
- 1 mg at 9:30pm
- Your 5 mg gummy at 11:30pm
Your 5 mg gummy at 11:30pm stays above your own night's peak until somewhere between 3:50 and 6:15am. Your dose across the night
Don't drive after a dose. Outside the US, melatonin is often prescription only, so check your own country's rules.
What your window means
The start time is an estimate. For 3 in 4 people it lands within an hour of when their melatonin really starts in a lab test. If your usual bedtime doesn't fit it, the tool says so, and the fall-asleep window, which runs off the bedtime you want, is the safer one to use.
Take it anywhere inside the window. To fall asleep faster, start at 0.5 to 1 mg and only go up if two weeks show nothing. To move your bedtime earlier, it's 0.5 mg plus daylight within an hour of waking, with your bedtime and dose moving 15 to 30 minutes earlier every 2 to 3 days as your sleep follows. At that pace a 2.5 hour move takes about 10 days to a month.
Then check it's doing something. The average effect on falling asleep is about 7 minutes, so the only way to know about yours is to compare nights on and off it. The two-week test does that.
No window at all? Under 18, pregnant or breastfeeding, or on a prescription medicine every day, the tool gives the light plan and no dose, since those are questions for your doctor. The safety page says why.
To move your bedtime earlier
0.5 mg, from the time you wake on a day with no alarm. The window runs from 4 to 2 hours before your own melatonin starts, with 3 hours before as the one time to remember.
| Wake on a free day | Your melatonin probably starts | Take 0.5 mg between | One time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6am | 8pm | 4 and 6pm | 5pm |
| 7am | 8:45pm | 4:45 and 6:45pm | 5:45pm |
| 8am | 9:35pm | 5:35 and 7:35pm | 6:35pm |
| 9am | 10:20pm | 6:20 and 8:20pm | 7:20pm |
| 10am | 11:10pm | 7:10 and 9:10pm | 8:10pm |
| 11:30am | 12:20am | 8:20 and 10:20pm | 9:20pm |
To fall asleep faster
0.5 to 1 mg to start, 1 to 3 hours before the time you want to be asleep. These rows also answer when to take it if you go to bed at 10, 11, midnight or 2am.
| Asleep by | Take it between |
|---|---|
| 10pm | 7 and 9pm |
| 11pm | 8 and 10pm |
| Midnight | 9 and 11pm |
| 1am | 10pm and midnight |
| 2am | 11pm and 1am |
Why the hour changes the direction
- A tablet here moves you earlier
- A tablet here moves you later
- Light here pushes later
- Light here pulls earlier
How the window works
Your own melatonin starts about 2 to 2.5 hours before you usually fall asleep, and the time you wake on a day with no alarm predicts it best: 0.80 times your wake time, minus 8.83 hours. Tested on a separate group, that landed within an hour of the measured start for 74% of people and within 1.5 hours for 96%, which are the two bands on the ring.
Taken 2 to 4 hours before your own melatonin starts, 0.5 mg moved the body clock earlier as far as 3 mg did. Taken just after waking, it moved it later, at the hour it would make you drowsy, so the window gives light for that job instead. To fall asleep faster, a 2024 analysis of 26 trials found earlier doses did better, and its authors suggested about 3 hours before bed.
Where the window stops
The equation came from young people sleeping on their own schedule in summer, so it may not fit older adults, night workers or travelers. Your own two weeks are the real test. This isn't how the Gyroscope app computes anything.
12 sources
- Burgess HJ, Eastman CI, The dim light melatonin onset following fixed and free sleep schedules, Journal of Sleep Research, 2005pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Burgess HJ, Revell VL, Molina TA, Eastman CI, Human phase response curves to three days of daily melatonin: 0.5 mg versus 3.0 mg, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2010pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Eastman CI, Burgess HJ, How to travel the world without jet lag, Sleep Medicine Clinics, 2009pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Sletten TL and others, Efficacy of melatonin with behavioural sleep-wake scheduling for delayed sleep-wake phase disorder, PLoS Medicine, 2018pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Khalsa SBS and others, A phase response curve to single bright light pulses in human subjects, Journal of Physiology, 2003pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Gooley JJ and others, Exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin onset and shortens melatonin duration in humans, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2011pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Cruz-Sanabria F and others, Optimizing the time and dose of melatonin as a sleep-promoting drug: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials and dose-response meta-analysis, Journal of Pineal Research, 2024pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Zhdanova IV and others, Sleep-inducing effects of low doses of melatonin ingested in the evening, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 1995pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Zhdanova IV and others, Melatonin treatment for age-related insomnia, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2001pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Dollins AB and others, Effect of inducing nocturnal serum melatonin concentrations in daytime on sleep, mood, body temperature, and performance, PNAS, 1994pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Andersen LP and others, Pharmacokinetics of oral and intravenous melatonin in healthy volunteers, BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology, 2016pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Herxheimer A, Petrie KJ, Melatonin for the prevention and treatment of jet lag, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2002pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
