Methods for measuring longitudinal relaxation times of protons in heavily overlapped 1H NMR spectra are introduced and exemplified using a solution of cholesteryl acetate. The methods are based on 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional maximum quantum NMR spectroscopy (MAXY), which makes possible the selective detection of CH, CH2 and CH3 1H NMR resonances. A modification of the BIRD pulse sequence to achieve selective inversion of protons bonded to either 12C or 13C is given. The approach should find application in studies of molecular dynamics where isotopic enrichment is not possible and the level of available sample dictates the use of 1H NMR spectroscopy.