Melatonin occurs naturally in your brain as a hormone. It helps many organisms to control their sleep cycles, and it is triggered by changes in light and dark.

Melatonin levels can cause sleep disruption when they are disturbed by issues that impact light and dark in your environment. For example, jet lag, seasonal affect disorder, and working shifts at irregular hours can confuse your brain, leading to lower levels of melatonin when you should be sleeping and higher levels when you want to be awake.

Melatonin is used as a supplement to correct this imbalance temporarily. It has been shown to offer significant improvement in people with melatonin-related sleep disorders and is safer than many other sedative medications used for insomnia. It is, however, not safe for use in children; only adults.

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Ways to get Melatonin

Foods

There are many foods that contain small amounts of melatonin, including cherries, bananas and walnuts. The levels might be low but cherries in particular absorb well and can help to top up natural levels in your body.

Supplements

Supplementing melatonin in low doses is generally agreed to be the most effective and helps to manage side effects. To avoid grogginess and vivid dreams, you can start with a low dose (0.5 – 1 mg) and see how it affects you. If you don’t feel any improvement, you can try a higher amount and hopefully avoid having too much in your system.

Benefits of Melatonin

Sleep and Waking Regulation

By incrementally increasing your melatonin levels, you can correct any disruptions to your sleep pattern. For example, if you are travelling to a different time zone and need to switch your biological clock, then you can take melatonin in what would normally be your daytime. Going outside in the evening light when it is changing to dark can also help this to occur naturally. However, in the meantime, melatonin supplements can help you to sleep and avoid becoming overtired and confused.

Insomnia Treatment

Given its natural function to help us understand when we should be sleeping, melatonin can be an excellent treatment for insomnia, especially where it is caused by disrupted patterns, such as seasonal overabundance of light.

Anxiety and Depression

There is some evidence that taking melatonin to improve sleep has a knock-on effect on anxiety and depression. Given that insomnia and tiredness are common symptoms of both of these disorders, it makes sense that getting more and better quality sleep will help improve mood and keep you more robust psychologically.

Antioxidant Properties

Melatonin is used as an antioxidant, and many studies show it helps with oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is linked to ageing and issues with metabolism in adults.

How Melatonin Works

Regulates Sleeping and Waking

Humans are naturally diurnal, which means we are biologically meant to be awake in the day and fall asleep at night. Melatonin is the hormone that drives this process, and so it allows us to manage our sleep cycles to the best of our ability.

Interacting with Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitters are chemicals in our brain that attach to different receptors and control how we feel, e.g. relaxed, happy, excited. GABA is the neurotransmitter that causes relaxation, and serotonin helps with mood and happiness. Both of these interact with melatonin and support each other, increasing the levels of the other.

Antioxidant Effects

As a well-known antioxidant, melatonin can help reduce inflammation and oxidative stress on cells in the body. This can be very helpful for people who have been drinking heavily and struggle with alcohol cravings. Inflammation can be at the heart of many of the symptoms and side effects.

The good and bad of melatonin

Pros of Melatonin

Natural Solution

Melatonin is used by the NHS as a natural alternative to sleeping pills and other sedative drugs for people who have insomnia. Unlike many medications, there has been no recorded case of death by overdose from melatonin. Other sedatives can risk respiratory and cardiac depression.

Not Addictive

You cannot become addicted to melatonin, unlike many other sedatives, including sleeping pills. You can become dependent on melatonin, though, if you take it for longer than is recommended.

Antioxidant

Although not usually the main reason for taking it, melatonin’s potential to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation can be more than an ‘added bonus’. Inflammation can be at the heart of many problems, both physical and psychological. By improving your health and well-being in this way, it may help you improve sleep and mood long-term.

Cons of Melatonin

Varied Absorbsion Rate

Most people start on a very low dose of melatonin and increase it where needed. This is because the rate at which it is absorbed into the human body can vary by up to 50%. This means that what might be too little for one person will give another challenging side effects such as grogginess and headaches.

Dependance

There is a risk of becoming dependent on melatonin. It can be used to compensate for the challenges of jet lag, shift work, and seasonal variations. However, using it consistently long term can make it hard to fall asleep naturally. This isn’t a physical dependence but one of habit and psychology. These are more easily broken and replaced with good sleep hygiene and a bedtime routine.

Melatonin, Mind and Body

Whether you are struggling with time zone lag, night shifts or seasonal affect disorder, melatonin is a great solution. It foregoes many of the typical side effects of sleeping and sedating drugs, and the side effects are easily managed by lower dosages.

With the added bonus of antioxidant properties and being non-addictive melatonin is a safe and natural option to help regulate your sleep and feel better rested.