I've been a night owl since I was a kid. In college, like many other students, I routinely went to bed at 3am and work up anywhere from 12-1pm. Those were good times, and that sleep schedule had no impact on my personal life because I always scheduled late classes and all of my friends basically had the same sleep schedule

Fast forward 3 years since getting my degree, and this sleep schedule just isn't acceptable. My commute, on public transportation, takes about 1 and a 1/2 hours. So, in order to get to the office at 9AM, I need to leave my home at 7:30AM. In order for me to wake up in the morning, I need a nice long shower and I always make and eat a hardy breakfast. This means I need to wake up at 6:30AM. I'm not complaining about that, but it does mean that I need to go to sleep at a reasonable time. Therein lies the problem.

No matter what I would do, for years I couldn't get myself to fall asleep before midnight. Even if I was tired I couldn't get to bed early!  It was ridiculous, and it made me so tired in the morning.  It started to effect my work life because I wasn't firing on all cylinders in the morning.  It effected my home life because I was just dragging when I got home and all I wanted to do was decompress on the couch.

All of this changed when I overheard a person recommending Melatonin to another person who was having sleep problems. I mentally noted this and did some research online a little later.  I found that melatonin occurs naturally in your body and it kind of 'tells your body' that it is time to go to sleep. As it gets darker outside, more melatonin is released into your bloodstream, which makes you tired.  I liked the idea of taking something that naturally occured in my body anyways, so a few days later I picked up a bottle at the drug store.

The first evening I took it at 7pm.  Just 1 hour later I was tired; actually, not just tired, but tired enough to go to bed immediately.  This is unheard of for me, so I considered it a success.

I awoke refreshed and feeling like I had a great night of sleep.  I wasn't graugy, I didn't feel hung over, and I didn't feel tired at all.  It was a wonderful feeling.

I thought it may have been a one night deal, but over the past 3 months, when I felt like I was going to need some assistance in getting to sleep, I popped one melatonin and its done a great job.  I've experienced no melatonin side effects other than it doing what it is intended to do.

I've also read online that a lot of people use melatonin to help themselves combat jet lag.  I haven't traveled since I've been using the stuff, but it seems like it makes sense to me.  If you've used it for this, please post your experience in the comments!

From what I read around the web, many doctors think that 3mg is actually too large of a dose to start with.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything for sale smaller than that.  I do see 5mg is also available, which is a lot of melatonin, according to the docs.

I am not a doctor and this should not be considered advice. If you choose to take melatonin, you should talk to your doctor. I am merely relaying my experience with it.