Don't take this the wrong way, but that's quite a concerning amount of melatonin to supplement every evening.
The amount of melatonin an adult human body naturally produces is ~30μg. The average dosage you and dreamer take is about 2000 times higher than that. Additionally, supplementing melatonin in the form of OTC pills carries an enormous risk outlined in this study -
Melatonin Natural Health Products and Supplements: Presence of Serotonin and Significant Variability of Melatonin Content - which found an unpredictable divergence between the advertised and actual amount of melatonin present in 30 commercial supplements, and that range varied between
83% less and
478% more than advertised. If the latter applies to your particular supplement, this means you could be taking nearly 10,000 times more melatonin than your body naturally produces.
There is some data that links serious health conditions with supplementing too much melatonin. Hypermelatoninemia is a very real thing and it can cause conditions like hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and Rabson-Mendenhall syndrome (which leads to diabetes and enlargement of the pineal gland).
I'm not trying to be nosy and interject where my opinion has not been asked for, but I'm just pointing this out because I care for you two's health. Based on what the linked study exposes, I generally stopped taking melatonin supplements entirely and instead replaced them with 500mg L-Tryptophan 30-60 min before sleep. It's a precursor to melatonin, and there's less variability in the advertised and actual amounts of it in the supplements I buy. I also take some magnesium L-Threonate.
Generally speaking, unless I do some activity that excites and overstimulates my mind before bed, and I try not to have a blue-light (or any bright light at all) emitter blasting my face for the last 2-3-4 hours of my day, I sleep like a baby.
If bright lights are not something you can easily avoid in the evening, there are some products on the market developed specifically for reducing the impact of those lights on your sleep, such as the recently released Roka collaboration with Andrew Huberman -
Wind Down™ by ROKA & Dr. Andrew Huberman
One additional interesting mention regarding lights is that light sources which are located above you (on the ceiling) excite the brain significantly more than those located on the same level (or lower) of your eyes. The reason for this is evolutionary and has to do with the circadian rythm of our predecessors, which evolved to acutely react to light coming from above (i.e. sunrise, and the respective start of the new day) by spiking your levels of cortisol, thus making it significantly harder to fall and stay asleep. It does so because it needs you to be focused and prepared to deal with hunting and securing the nourishment needs of your tribe. All that is to say, if you can, you should turn off overhead lights in the evening.
Cheers!
