Why does Melatonin help you sleep? Melatonin, as a dietary supplement, helps regulate the body’s internal clock and is used by many to help people with a sleep issue fall asleep and stay asleep.
A Melatonin supplement relieves stress, and is also used as an alternative to drugs for those suffering from insomnia because of chronic or acute pain. But what exactly is Melatonin and how does it help you sleep? This article will explore the answer to this question.
The pineal gland produces melatonin in the brain. They secrete it at night when it is dark and is thought to be a natural mood elevator.
As most people know, there are several types of melatonin, but they call the most commonly used Antonin (or simply “me-too”.)
How Does Melatonin Affect Sleep?
The primary reason melatonin is used to treat insomnia is because it is a naturally occurring hormone, unlike the artificial ones that are being made these days. And when it is synthesized, they make it to mimic the hormone produced by the pineal gland.
One problem that occurs with melatonin is that it can cause sleep apnea. This condition is a condition where a person has breathing problems while they are asleep.
There have been studies on the effects of melatonin on sleeping and the results have shown that it helps you sleep longer in the short term, but only if it is taken regularly. But we believe that this is only one effect of this hormone.
So, what else does melatonin do for you? You’ll find that as soon as you learn more about this hormone, you’ll be able to better understand how it works for you, helping you sleep better, stay asleep longer, and prevent the sleep disorder known as sleep apnea.
One benefit of melatonin is that it acts like a natural antidepressant. It also helps in promoting sleep. Many doctors believe that melatonin as sleep medicine is also a weight loss aid. Studies have shown that besides helping you get to sleep, it can help you avoid the cravings you have for sweets and other bad foods.
Does Melatonin Help You Sleep? What Are The Negative Effects On Melatonin?
![Does Melatonin Help You Sleep](https://peachvitamins.com/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/12/Does-Melatonin-Help-You-Sleep-1024x576.png)
If you’ve been looking for a cure and are finding it difficult to go without the use of pills or medications, you’re not alone. The side effects can be quite harmful to your health. So how do you determine if the use of melatonin will benefit you?
While they are usually minor, some of the side effects can be depression, fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, tremors, restlessness, and headaches.Melatonin also affects your body chemistry and can cause problems with memory. In rare cases, it can cause hallucinations and seizures. So you should be careful not to exceed the recommended dosage.
If you’re not able to get enough sleep because you are a night owl, then there are probably many other issues that may cause this sleep deprivation. Your doctor should be able to help you determine which one of these is causing the problem.
But even if your physician diagnoses you with insomnia, he or she may prescribe nothing. He or she may prescribe you a sleep aid pill but will probably not prescribe melatonin.
It is best to take melatonin on its own, as well as to take a natural supplement or prescription that contains it hours before bedtime.
Does Melatonin Help You Stay Asleep?
What happens when you take it is that it gives you a boost to help you get a good night’s sleep. And it will also help you avoid the cravings for sugary foods, caffeinated beverages, and other bad foods that disrupt your sleep pattern. If you’re taking regular melatonin, it will help to reset your sleep cycle and allow you to get a more restful night’s sleep.
Because it can help you sleep better, it may also be a good idea to take it before you exercise. And it can help you avoid being over-tired the next day. So if you’re going to workout, take it just before you do so.
However, it’s not a miracle drug, so it won’t work for everyone. Don’t let the advertisements sell you melatonin. You still need to follow your doctor’s instructions in order to get the best results, depending on your specific levels of melatonin. But it is helpful for most people.
The Sleep Wake Cycle
When we consider the way we sleep, and the way our body works when we are sleeping, it’s easy to lose track of what is happening long term on a day-to-day basis. This is not unusual for many people and for many years this has been considered being normal, as there are so many things going on in the body each day of our lives.
However, it has been proven that when we allow too many things to happen to us at one time, and then we go back to sleep, our sleep becomes less than perfect. One reason for this is that sleep-wake cycles, or cycles where we have to sleep over-wake cycles, are often very unnatural.
Sleep is something that we all need. It is an essential part of how we deal with life on a day-to-day basis, and it can sometimes be difficult to make it a point to go to bed at the same time each night. One problem that we encounter is that as soon as we wake up we often feel like we want to do things that are different. As soon as we feel like we have had enough sleep we think about what we have done. This is a problem that is common and the most obvious symptom is that we fall asleep even when we don’t have any plans for the day or even any reason to be doing so.
What they can do about this problem of having to adjust to the sleep-wake cycle of life? Well, first, it is important that you keep some structure in your daily life. One way that this can be done is by making a routine out of your waking hours, or the hours of the day that you are most likely to wake up.
You might choose to wake up at six o’clock in the morning, for example, or you might choose to wake up at four in the afternoon. Either way, this can help to keep your sleep-wake cycle under control and it will help to make the rest of your day more consistent and more structured.
Sleep Wake Phase Disorder
Sleep Wake Phase Disorder (SWPD) is a type of sleep apnea where the individual cannot be woken up by their own body’s natural breathing process. When the individual suffers from this disorder, they will have trouble breathing for up to 10 minutes at a time during the nighttime. The patient may either snore or wake up in the middle of the night having their throat or head feeling completely full of air. They may wake up gasping for air and feel like they have never been asleep at all. Although many individuals believe that sleep apnea can only be diagnosed by performing a sleep study, the condition is not usually detected if there are no symptoms present during this sleep study.
Sleep Wake Phase Disorder is not fully understood yet, but there are a few theories what causes it. One theory suggests that an overactive brain that is trying to communicate with the breathing system through the brain causes this disorder. Another theory is that a lack of oxygen that is caused by various illnesses causes this disorder. Many experts believe that an individual’s own hormones may be the major cause of the sleep disorder. There have even been studies where certain hormones have been found to be associated with this sleep disorder. It is believed that some people may have a particular type of hormone called leptin, which is a hormone responsible for regulating how fat stores affect your body.
Sleep Wake Phase Disorder has no known cure and there are no short-term use medications that can actually remove the symptoms. You will need to deal with the problems that this sleep disorder causes, such as being unable to sleep, waking up during the middle of the night, and being irritable during the day. There are also many things that you can do to help the symptoms of this disorder and being able to get a better sleep quality rest during the day. The key to solving the problem is to determine why you suffer from this sleep disorder and what you can do to treat it.
Does Melatonin Help Sleep? How Much Is Safe? Answers By Cosmic Mike
[00:00:01.150]
And this is Cosmic Mike and welcome to another episode of Vitamin Wednesday. You know, we get a lot of questions about sleep. We get a lot of customers asking what’s helpful for sleep, any supplement. And I’m sure a lot of you have seen this or may have used melatonin. Well, you know what? The questions we get asked are:
- What is the melatonin?
- How much can I take and is it safe?
Melatonin is really a hormone that the body releases due to the change in the light, which our eyes perceive when it gets darker and it produces the pineal gland in the brain, produce this hormone, which is melatonin, which helps your blood pressure calm down, relax and go to sleep.
[00:00:47.160]
And of course, this is the opposite of the other hormone, which is cortisol, which is in the day, which gets us going so very important, the circadian rhythm to balance with melatonin. And that’s what the body uses, which we discussed the last few weeks ago in my video. You can see in my feed the circadian cycle that goes in for sleep and the things where the rotation of the earth, which determines the sun and the moon.
[00:01:12.250]
Moon’s right. And this is what helps the melatonin level increase in our system. And this is what puts her to sleep. Now, the issue with sleep we’re having nowadays is because we have light where it should be darker and we are too active at the point where we should be calming down and settling into our beds. So the body’s going to fight where the brain is telling it that it needs to go to sleep because it’s got dark outside. But when you’re at home with all these bright lights, wear and TV or the blue light coming from your screens, it’s telling the brain again, there is brightness and the eyes pick up that brightness and it’s telling the brain that we are not ready to sleep. This can also cause daytime drowsiness.
[00:01:51.810]
So there’s a fight happening between the production of the melatonin and reducing the melatonin production of cortisol. And that’s why a lot of people are not able to go to sleep because they could be agitated, it could be activated, energetic at the end of the day. And this is where they’re having problems going to sleep. But, you know, in my practice or in my recommendations, I generally do not just jump to the melatonin because the melatonin is really to balance the circadian rhythm.
[00:02:23.310]
Now, the circadian rhythm can go off if you’re traveling zones, if you’re a part of the night shift workers group, where you’re working at night and sleeping in the day. So see, you’re going against nature where you should be sleeping in the darkness, but you are really working in the bright and really thinking, having your thoughts and being active. So now the body starts getting confused. And this is where you can have a lot of issues, especially those workers or those nighttime workers where they start gaining weight, digestive issues, lack of energy for females, a lot of hormonal changes.
[00:03:01.680]
Maybe the cycle gets heavier. And so, you know, staying with nature and staying with the circadian rhythm, it’s very important. That’s what melatonin is, use force. If you are working the night shift, then definitely you should be doing melatonin. And also, if you’re traveling a lot for business or anything else but zones where you realize you get jet lag and that’s where the melatonin is used to kind of offset or bring back that into balance. So next time when you travel and you take a small melatonin before you go on the plane and while you’re on the plane, you would see that jet lag is not as heavy as when you reach the next few days and you’re able to get to that rhythm.
[00:03:42.960]
You know, especially when we travel to India, where there is 12, 13 hours or in Asia difference. So that can take a toll on you with jet lag. So taking melatonin can help in that sense, but not for daily sleep. That’s what I do not recommend or that’s not the first thing I would jump to. But the market calls for it because it’s advertised that sleep is advertised and benefiting from sleep. And the dosages, well, the dosage is higher.
[00:04:11.520]
It’s always in this industry or on the Internet. Everything that’s higher is better. That’s not the case. You should not just jump for the highest amount of melatonin. You can start with three point five point two or three milligrams as such to be the least amount of melatonin to start because you are not sure why your melatonin or if your melatonin is low. It could be, just, like I said, just the activities that are happening or you are being too active at the time of sleep.
[00:04:40.830]
And there are a lot of other herbs which we’ll discuss in my other videos, of course, Valerian, Camiel, magnesium, passionfruit, all these are balancing and relaxing holy basil, which is talty, which is also great just to drink the tea as tea in the night to try to calm you down instead of changing that. So I think starting with a small amount is always good. Large amounts, lot of people do take them because they want to get knocked out and it will knock you out.
[00:05:10.800]
So you definitely don’t want to be out there. You don’t want to be driving or, you know, managing any kind of machinery or anything. So not necessarily high the better. That’s why, you know, I would like to ask my client what and why and what is the reason for taking the melatonin nine kids. That could also be a situation where the melatonin is low. They will be able to sleep and they are not growing as much or their body composition.
[00:05:39.970]
It’s not tallying up to their age. And this is where melatonin can help, but starting again with a small dosage. And definitely you want to ask your doctor or get your blood test done for the kids. I have seen a lot of research with autism where kids with autism also have a low amount of melatonin, where they’re secreting very little bit of melatonin at the point of sleep where after six o’clock. Of course, melatonin is not going to be that high in the mornings or in the day.
[00:06:09.480]
It is going to be high. And when it’s dark. So understanding that, you know, that you don’t want to just jump into melatonin and the side effects. Well, you know, the main side effect that I’ve seen, I’ve used it only once and I cannot use it because it makes me groggy. It gave me nightmares. So I’ve used it once in the last maybe 20 years, but made me very groggy in the morning. I could not give it up, just like I had a hangover.
[00:06:36.900]
And definitely it gave me nightmares. So you want to watch out for those now? The different forms it comes in, it comes into a bowl as it comes in gummies. It comes in tablets. But what I would suggest is taking the sublingual because the sublingual does not go through your digestive system. They’re going directly into your bloodstream. So those are going to be more effective or quicker absorbed where they’re getting into your bloodstream. So you will feel that sleepy thing going in in about 15 minutes.
[00:07:08.480]
How to take it to force, just starting with, again, a very small dosage, a point, five milligrams a point, too. Now, those are very tough to get. So you want to be careful. Most of those are one milligram to about 10 milligrams or 20 milligrams. And if you’re diagnosed with low melatonin in general, then definitely you should go for what your doctors prescribe, the source of melatonin. Now, you want to know is generally animals now or synthetically made.
[00:07:36.540]
So you want to make sure if you’re vegetarian or vegan, you want to make sure that it says up on the bottom. Now, there are very few companies out there that do make a plant source, which generally comes from Rice. And you want to really see on the label if it’s specified to exactly where the source is. But I would say 80, 90 percent is coming from animals. So, you know, melatonin. I just wanted to give some thoughts on melatonin, not my first recommendation, but if you have any further questions, you can always reach out to me, of course, at vitamins and give us any comments there or if you’ve used the melatonin.
[00:08:11.900]
Does melatonin help you sleep and how is that working for you? It’d be great to get some feedback for other clients as well. So hope everyone has the rest of the week safe and we will catch up again on Friday for Mindful Friday. Again, thank you for joining us.
Ask the Doctors: Block screens’ blue light to get better sleep – GoErie.com (goerie.com)
Summary:
- With a large portion of our daily lives taking place online, it’s quite possible that the high-energy light emitted by our computers, tablets and smartphones is adding to the toll.
- Similar to sunlight, blue light has been shown to suppress the release of melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain that makes you feel sleepy.
- Instead of the warm tones of evening light, which signal the brain to power down and prepare for sleep, the blue light emitted by electronic devices insists it’s daytime.
- You can take specific steps to mitigate the effects of exposure to blue light and improve your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Can Melatonin Help Treat COVID-19? – Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic (health.clevelandclinic.org)
Summary:
- As several coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine trials show promise , a new Cleveland Clinic study has shown that melatonin , which can regulate your sleep cycle and is a common sleep aid, could be a potential treatment option for patients with the virus.
- That data enabled researchers to find conditions with similar protein proximities to COVID-19 that already had drugs approved for treatment.
- Those drugs, the researchers propose, could possibly be used to treat COVID-19.
[wps_products product_id=”6543182561315″ html_template=”product.php”]