And when should you avoid using it?
Melatonin is a complex drug. When used, it has different effects on our body and brain. In this article, I’ll explain the importance and practical issues of melatonin.
It is important to remember the use of melatonin should always be considered when a doctor or specialist prescribed it. Please, avoid self-medication. You should keep in mind improving your sleeping patterns and behavior (via cognitive behavioral therapy) is better and less invasive than medication (like melatonin)
What is Melatonin?
Melatonin is a hormone that regulates your sleep-wake rhythm. It is made and released by the pineal gland, a small gland located in the brain. When your body senses it’s getting dark and your bedtime it’s approaching, the pineal gland releases melatonin into your bloodstream. Melatonin levels rise until they are at their highest in the middle of the night. Afterward, they will slowly decrease until they are at their minimum in the morning.
Modern living has put pressure under natural melatonin release. Your body needs to sense it’s getting dark before it starts releasing melatonin. It’s something really hard to do when you are surrounded by light bulbs, TVs and computers shining light at you in every moment of your life. When you expose yourself to artificial light past twilight -including exposure in your bed just before you sleep- you are disrupting your natural response to light and night stimuli and thus disrupting melatonin release cycles.
“The artificial light coming off your phone screen is making your brain think it’s daylight, negatively impacting your melatonin production.”
Melatonin and your different types of biorhythm
Your biorhythm is determined by the time melatonin is released in your body. This will tell you whether you are a morning type, a middle type or an evening type. If you are a morning type, melatonin production starts in the afternoon, making you sleepy at around 9:30-10:00 PM. If you are a middle type, bedtime happens a little bit later -as the melatonin production starts later as well-, and your bedtime will happen around 11 PM. Evening types can go way past midnight before they go to sleep, as their melatonin production happens later in the day.
Your biorhythm is determined by genetic predisposition. This means you’ll probably have the same biorhythm from the day you were born. But this doesn’t mean you can’t change it over time. If you follow a tight schedule and a nighttime routine, your body will slowly adjust to the new, imposed biorhythm. Unfortunately, you’ll tend to shift towards your original biorhythm if you don’t take your new routine seriously.
“Morning light is necessary to adjust our biological clock correctly. It is essential to keep a healthy and desirable sleep-wake rhythm.”
Let’s use a simple example to understand how biorhythm works and how we can affect it: A young mother with an evening type biorhythm has to wake up early every morning to take care of her small child. She constantly wakes up early in the morning, including the weekends. Even though she is genetically predisposed to falling asleep and waking up late, her new routine slowly moves her into a morning type biorhythm. She wakes up early, has breakfast early, leaves early. She has lunch at noon and dinner around 5:30 PM. Even though an evening type would start to feel sleepy at around midnight, after an early rise and a long day every day, she starts to fall asleep at around 9:30 PM. Her routine ultimately changed her biorhythm.
However, let’s say another family member takes care of her child for two weeks and she is left alone in her house for the time being. If she doesn’t have her child to wake her up, she will slowly fall back into her old, natural biorhythm. In two or three days she will be back to her evening type sleeping patterns.
This applies to everyone, including teenagers who like to go to sleep late. A middle type biorhythm can be achieved via fixed consistent middle type patterns. But as soon as you get complacent, your sleep time biorhythm will shift back to the evening type.
What does Melatonin do?
To put it simply, melatonin works like a little messenger telling your body that it is getting dark. When this hormone does it, your body starts to get ready to sleep. Everything, from your brain to your different organs, will put themselves in night mode. And just like melatonin works for you to get sleep, it will also start to fade away once it’s time to wake up. The least amount of light will shut down melatonin production, signaling your body it’s time to wake up. Whether it’s the sun or artificial bright light, as soon as your body senses light, it will understand it’s time to start your day.
Melatonin also has other uses, especially in babies. It is vital for brain development around birth. It can protect the baby against oxygen deficiency around birth as well. During pregnancy, the placenta is in charge of melatonin production for the baby. This controls the day-night rhythm of the fetus, eventually influencing your time of birth -usually at night-.
Melatonin also influences your brain and organs as it decides their performance level by putting them into day or night mode. The majority of your organs can perceive whether there are high or low levels of melatonin productions.
This hormone is also a powerful antioxidant. It can help inhibit inflammation symptoms and alleviate chronic pain. It is also useful against the aging process and repairs damage to our DNA.
Melatonin can be of great help, but it can be easily abused as well. The misuse of melatonin can lead to a disruption of your sleeping patterns and it can affect your organs as well as yourself as you develop a melatonin resistance. This eventually will affect your quality of sleep significantly, making it impossible to wake up fully rested and refreshed.
As you get older, your natural production of melatonin decreases. Your brain becomes less aware of your melatonin needs, reducing your deep sleep phases and overall nighttime sleep. But your REM sleep and light sleep phases will remain the same until old age.
Is melatonin a sleeping aid?
Yes, it is. Melatonin does affect sleep. After all, that’s its intended use. As stated, melatonin will put your internal process in night mode. In severe cases, the right use of melatonin can fix late-type sleeping patterns. For example, it helps blind people maintain a healthy sleep-wake cycle. It can also help with jet lag.
When should you NOT use it?
Melatonin isn’t used for regular sleeping problems, even if the drug packaging states otherwise. It’s unwise -and even dangerous- to buy melatonin and take a random amount of it at any random time of the day. Before taking melatonin, you should consult your doctor, specialist or the sleep therapist.
If you would like to get help learning how to sleep better, you can visit our website and contact a Sleep Therapist in your area.