Cut From Steel

TWO MONTHS IN THE DARK. HIS BODY KEPT TIME.

Michel Siffre was 23 years old in July 1962 when he climbed down into the Scarasson cave in the French Alps. Camp sat about 130 meters underground. Siffre left every clock behind and lived by lamplight.

The young Frenchman ate when he felt hungry and slept when he felt tired. At one point he counted to 120, which should take two minutes. It took him about five. A team on the surface logged each call he made. With no sun to go by, his body had to keep time on its own.

On September 14, the team called down to say the experiment was over. Siffre believed it was still August 20. He had lost about 25 days. The rhythm inside him had held, though. Sleep and waking still ran on a cycle of roughly 24 and a half hours.

Siffre spent much of his life studying that inner clock. He lived six months in a Texas cave in 1972. At 60, he went underground once more. He died in 2024 at the age of 85.

You carry the same clock. It does not need a bigger dose. What it needs is a clear signal. Siffre proved the clock keeps running in total darkness, and today's letter is about helping yours.

What a sleep researcher does at 9 PM instead of melatonin

After 45, melatonin pills work differently. Nobody mentions this at the pharmacy.

You take one at 10. You’re awake at 2 anyway, and groggy through your first coffee.

Here’s the part that rarely gets explained. Most melatonin pills contain several times more than your body naturally produces, and the morning grogginess is the price.

A top sleep expert from the University of Washington points to a different route. A 30-second bedtime step called the cherry trick.

It works with your body, not over it. It prompts your own supply of the sleep-regulating hormone, the one your brain has been making your whole life.

In research on this approach, total sleep time increased by up to 84 minutes a night. That’s roughly ten times the average gain measured with melatonin pills.

36,498 people are already using it. Susan R., from Denver: “I finally started sleeping straight through. No more tossing and turning, no more groggy mornings. For the first time in years, I wake up feeling truly rested.”

When was the last time you woke up like that?

The full explanation is in a short video. What the trick is, why it works differently after 45, and exactly what to do at 9 PM tonight.

See the cherry trick explained here (short video)

To your health,

P.S. It’s not cherry juice, and it’s not a supplement. Thirty seconds in your kitchen, then bed. Watch how it’s done.

THE PILL THAT STOPPED WORKING

You started taking melatonin a few years back because a buddy swore by it. The bottle said 5 milligrams, maybe 10. For a while you slept better. Now you still wake at two, and the mornings feel like wading through mud.

You have probably decided this is just what happens after 45. I think the bottle deserves some of the blame.

I took the stuff for a while myself. More seemed like it should work better, so I kept creeping up the dose. My mornings only got worse.

IT'S NOT AGE. IT'S THE DOSE.

You need to know three things about melatonin before you buy another bottle.

01 / It is a signal, not a sedative

Your brain releases melatonin as the light fades. One clinical review calls it the signal for biological night. In other words, it tells your body what time it is. Melatonin was never built to knock you out.

02 / More is not better

MIT researchers reported in 2005 that about 0.3 milligrams was enough to help. Many store pills held about ten times that amount. At the higher dose, the brain's receptors seemed to stop responding after a few days. In other words, the extra milligrams did not buy extra sleep. Mayo Clinic lists daytime drowsiness as a common side effect, which may explain the foggy mornings.

03 / The label may not match

A 2023 study in JAMA tested 25 melatonin gummy products. Most of them, 22 in all, were labeled wrong. The real amount of melatonin ranged from 74 percent to 347 percent of what the label promised. Five of the products also contained CBD. You may be taking far more than you think.

GIVE THE CLOCK A CLEAN SIGNAL

You can fix most of this without a new prescription. Get outside in daylight early in the day, because bright light in the daytime helps you sleep at night. Turn the lights low after dinner and put the phone in another room. Harvard Health notes that light at night suppresses melatonin, and blue light does it most.

You may still want melatonin now and then, for jet lag or a rough week. Ask your doctor about a much smaller dose, taken a couple of hours before bed. Research suggests 0.3 to 1 milligram may be enough for many people. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advises against using it for chronic insomnia, so a pill should not be your whole plan.

You can anchor the whole clock with one fixed wake time. Get up at the same hour every morning, even after a bad night. Keep the bedroom dark and cool.

I would rather you rebuild the clock than keep shouting at it. Give the daylight and the dark evenings two weeks.

One last thing. Your body has kept time every night of your life. Stop drowning it out.

— Travis

Insider Member's Corner

6 free habits that keep your clock on time:

You didn't put in 45 years to settle for beige.

01 / Car · Ferrari Roma

Ferrari unveiled the Roma in Rome in November 2019. The coupe carries a twin-turbo V8 up front and makes 620 metric horsepower. Ferrari has since replaced it with the Amalfi, so a Roma coupe is now a pre-owned hunt. You buy this one for the coast road, not the lap time.

02 / Drink · Aperol Spritz

Brothers Luigi and Silvio Barbieri created Aperol in Padua in 1919. The classic spritz is three parts prosecco, two parts Aperol, and a splash of soda. Pour it over ice with an orange slice. A spritz belongs to the early evening, well before bed.

03 / Book · The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas published this story in installments between 1844 and 1846. Edmond Dantès spends about 14 years locked in the Château d'If for a crime he did not commit. He comes out with a plan and a fortune. Keep it on the nightstand and read a chapter instead of scrolling.