For occasional sleepless nights or as a short-term aid to sleep difficulties, some people turn to medications and other substances to help them sleep. One of the most widely used options is melatonin, available as a prescription drug and as an over-the-counter supplement . Melatonin has been shown to help people who have difficulty falling asleep, as well as those with occasional insomnia. It can be especially effective for people with shift jobs that require sleep during daylight hours and those who experience jet lag after traveling. Find out more about how melatonin can help you sleep better below.
What is melatonin?
Melatonin is a natural hormone in the body that affects the sleep-wake cycle. Its levels rise at night – which helps you feel drowsy – and fall in the morning – which allows you to be more alert. Generally, the body produces enough melatonin to help regulate this sleep-wake cycle , but for times when it is difficult to sleep, such as a stressful work week or a long trip, melatonin supplements can help. If you decide to take melatonin, the following tips will help you get the most out of the supplement.
How to take melatonin?
Even those who can sleep noisy have trouble falling asleep or falling asleep from time to time. You may want to try melatonin for sleep if you have difficulty for more than a night or two . Research shows that this supplement can help people with insomnia fall asleep a little faster, and it has greater benefits for people with delayed sleep phase syndrome – sleeping too late and waking up late the next day.
As for the dosage, it is better not to take much . Supplements generally cause blood levels of the hormone to rise well above natural levels. In other words, more is not necessarily better: a dose of 1 to 3 mg can increase the melatonin in the blood up to 1 to 20 times the normal level, it is the necessary amount you need to take the owner . Take it two hours before you go to sleep for it to take effect.
There are few, if any, long-term studies on melatonin supplementation, which means that it is not known how melatonin may affect it after long-term use. However, the supplement appears to be safe for short-term use. Although the side effects of melatonin supplementation are rare, they can include drowsiness, headache, dizziness, and nausea .
Do Melatonin Supplements Work?
Melatonin supplements have been studied in the treatment of various sleep disorders and related problems, such as shift work, jet lag, insomnia, and delayed sleep phase disorder , a condition in which the person has problems to fall asleep before 2 am and to wake up early in the morning.
Like most scientific research, particularly in the world of dietary supplements, research results on melatonin are mixed.
A 2004 summary from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reviewed some of the research available at the time and found it very unpromising, doubting melatonin treatment for sleep problems. However, this was many years ago, and the details in the document are for historical reference only and the information may not be current.
Since this summary of research was published, a wide variety of more recent research has been carried out. In 2017, a review was published in Neurological Research looking at a large number of studies, mostly completed in the last 10 years. Their findings highlighted that melatonin is a promising supplement for the treatment of insomnia, breathing disorders during sleep, such as apnea, narcolepsy, disorders of the sleep-wake cycle, and parasomnias or physical and emotional disorders during sleep. .
In terms of symptoms, the researchers found that melatonin could: improve sleep quality, increase total sleep time, reduce time to fall asleep, improve sleep efficiency, reduce nighttime activities and changes of position, increase blood flow and lower blood pressure in the case of sleep breathing disorder, regulates the heart rate.
Other research has shown that melatonin is good for relieving jet lag , an effect that occurs when traveling through more than one time zone. It is also ideal to take for shift work , as evidence suggests that melatonin supplements can improve the quality of sleep during the day, although it may not affect alertness at night.
