Melatonin levels tend to rise about fourteen hours after waking. If you get eight hours’ sleep every night and wake at six A.M., that means your melatonin levels will naturally rise around eight P.M., and you’ll start to get sleepy and go to bed two hours after that, around ten P.M. If it takes about an hour for a melatonin pill to be absorbed into your bloodstream, that means taking one about three hours before bedtime. The next most effective treatment, after light therapy and melatonin, is moderate late-afternoon or early-evening exercise, like going outside for a walk. The combination of
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