Martin said that in many studies, melatonin does not work any better than a placebo but added, “One caveat I always like to mention, though, is that placebos work pretty well for insomnia.” What about dosage? Sabra Abbott, an assistant professor of neurology in sleep medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said the most common complaint she hears from patients is “I tried melatonin and it didn’t work.” Many also feel hung over or groggy the next morning.ĭr. That may not sound like much, but there was a lot of individual variation, and researchers found that melatonin also improved overall sleep quality, including people’s ability to wake up feeling refreshed.īut there’s no guarantee that melatonin will work for you.ĭr.
In one analysis published in 2013 in PLOS One, which combined results from 19 studies involving 1,683 men and women, people who took melatonin supplements fell asleep seven minutes faster and increased overall sleep time by eight minutes. Avidan, a professor of neurology and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at U.C.L.A. Hypnotic drugs like Ambien or Benadryl generally cause people to feel sleepy right away, and the sedation effect of those medications “far exceeds that which they obtain from melatonin,” said Dr. If you took melatonin in the middle of the day, it doesn’t really have that effect.” “If you took a sleeping pill in the middle of the day, it would make you feel sleepy. Martin, who is also a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “The impact it has on our sleep depends on the time of day that you take it,” said Dr. Rosen, a sleep medicine doctor and associate professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, “which is what I think is the misconception about how melatonin is used.” It doesn’t put you to sleep as much as it tells the body that it’s time to sleep. So taking a melatonin supplement is sort of like taking a dose of sunset, tricking your body into feeling like it’s nighttime. Instead of a lights-out trigger, melatonin acts more like a dimmer switch, turning the day functions off and switching night functions on.
“Melatonin is sometimes called the ‘hormone of darkness’ or ‘vampire hormone,’” because it comes out at night, said Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the book “ Why We Sleep.” As levels of melatonin rise, levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, fall. A few hours before our natural sleep time, as it starts to get dark outside and the light entering our retina fades, the gland switches on to flood the brain with melatonin. Anxiety can cause insomnia, as can a host of other potentially serious ailments, such as sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome or mood disorders like depression, that may require medical treatment.ĭuring the day, the brain’s pea-sized pineal gland remains inactive. “There are some clinical uses for it, but not the way that it’s marketed and used by the vast majority of the general public,” said Jennifer Martin, a psychologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.Įxperts strongly urge people to consult their doctor or a sleep specialist before taking melatonin, in part because the supplement does not address many underlying health problems that may be disrupting sleep. But melatonin is also a hormone that our brains naturally produce, and hormones, even in minuscule amounts, can have potent effects throughout the body. Even the name of the popular dietary supplement sounds sleepy - that long “o” sound almost makes you yawn mid-word. Most people think of melatonin as a natural nod-off aid, kind of like chamomile tea in pill form.
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