Melatonin — the hormone, the dose, and the math
Melatonin is a hormone your pineal gland produces in response to darkness. It signals that night is starting — not that you’re tired, but that the eight-hour window is open. Phew uses 1 mg per strip. Here’s why that number, and what makes it different from the aisle.
Melatonin is a signal, not a sedative. Your body produces 0.1–0.3 mg of melatonin per night, peaking a few hours after sundown. It’s not what makes you tired — it’s what tells your body the day is closing. Sedatives work on the part of your brain that controls wakefulness. Melatonin works on the part that controls timing.
The dose research actually backs. EFSA — the European Food Safety Authority — authorized melatonin’s sleep-onset latency claim at 1 mg taken close to bedtime (EFSA Journal 2011;9(6):2241). That’s the dose with the strongest evidence base. Aisle bottles routinely ship 5, 10, even 20 mg — which is somewhere between 30 and 200 times what your body produces on its own.
Why the higher dose isn’t better. Past about 1 mg, more melatonin doesn’t make you fall asleep faster. The curve flattens. What it does do is leave more hormone in your system the next day — and that’s the morning fog. Most people who think they need 10 mg don’t; they just haven’t tried 1.
What phew uses. Pharmaceutical-grade USP melatonin, synthesized to a structure identical to the molecule your body makes. We list the milligrams on the front of the tin — no “proprietary blend”, no rounding.
Per-batch transparency. We’re working with Supliful to make per-batch Certificates of Analysis (potency, heavy-metals, microbial) available on request. Email hello@tryphew.com for the current batch report. The end goal is a tin-bottom lot number that looks up its own COA — work in progress.