Vitamins and Minerals as Sleeping Pills?

I've always had problems getting to sleep and/or staying asleep and I've tried: routines, reading before bed, cutting out caffiene, not exercising before bed, etc. Those all helped me fall asleep faster, but they didn't help me stay asleep -I'd still wake up in the middle of the night, and not be able to go back to sleep.

Well, I read an article a few months ago about the effect of minerals on sleep. Calcium, it said, helps you get to sleep. This is why the old folk wisdom says to drink warm milk. But, too much Calcium can make you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom because the calcium settles in your bladder and makes you feel like you have to go. To fix this you need more Magnesium so that your body can absorb the Calcium.

Magnesium provides the brain with energy. Too much magnesium, and you wake up in the middle of the night and you can't get back to sleep. (My problem.) The answer, again, is to balance the Calcium/Magnesium ratio. Either cut down on the Magnesium, or increase the Calcium.

In researching "B vitamins" I found that Niacin is also a sleep inducer. It's supposed to be calming.

So, I put all this together, and I've been taking the following before bed for over a month now:

• 250mg Magnesium (as Magnesium Oxide)
• 315mg Calcium Citrate (+200IU Vitamin D to help absorbtion)
• 500mg Flush Free Niacin (as inositol hexanicotinate + 42mg Calcium Carbonate)

It's been working out very well. The number of nights that I've woken up and not been able to go back to sleep have decreased dramatically. I'm not as tired during the day anymore (I was living on coffee before, but have only had the occassional cup since taking the supplements). I'm impressed and intend to keep it up!