As some of you might remember in 1993 I caught a very stubborn case of Lyme Disease.  One of the many things it did for me was destroy my sleep.  Up to that point I got eight hours per night almost always.  How I miss that! 
   For a very long time I've been getting by on three hours per night.  Some nights less.  This just isn't healthy.  Of course sleeping pills are available but I was heavily medicated including legal narcotics for 23 years due to my Lyme Disease and too many other health issues to list here. 
    Not quite eight years ago I threw away all of the doctors' poison pills, completely cleaned up my act, and have been living a better life since.  So you can see why I am reluctant to take pills.  I don't even take Tylenol if I have a headache.
     But we need to sleep so I needed to do something.  I decided to try Melatonin.  10 mg is the recommended dose.  For the first two weeks nothing happened.  I kept taking it because I paid for it so I might as well use it up.  After two weeks I started getting more sleep.  Now instead of three hours I'm getting five or six.  This is a significant difference.  I haven't noticed any side effects from Melatonin yet.  I guess it's OK.  I'm still not wild about taking pills but we need to sleep.

Glad to hear you're getting some more rest RM.  I've known several people with insomnia and that's certainly not a fun thing.  One of the main concerns with taking melatonin is that your body will become dependent on it for sleep.  Which I don't see as a big deal if you're already not sleeping anyway.

I take melatonin some nights in the form of a mushroom hot cocoa.  I don't have any trouble sleeping, but on those nights I do feel it's a deeper sleep and also more vivid dreams.

I have pretty severe sleeping issues and took melatonin, I think 10mg too, for years. That's apprently not recommended. Currently without medicine at all though and sleep is ALL kinds of f*cked (current time here is 04:40; been up all night).

Idk if you have the same isues I do (to actually fall asleep not the quality of the sleep) but can in that case also recommend Stilnoct on those hard to fall asleep nights (not to be used too much but as you said NOT sleeping is bad too so choose your poison).