Everything you need to know about melatonin

Melatonin is available around the world as a supplement, and sometimes it's also added to other supplements that are supposed to aid with your sleep. Melatonin also gets prescribed for certain sleeping conditions, depending on the country you're in.

However, there are several misconceptions about melatonin and what it is, and what it actually does for us and for our sleep. In this article we'll go through some of the key facts about melatonin, its role, and most importantly whether you should be taking it or not to improve your sleep!

What is melatonin, and what does it do?

Melatonin is a natural hormone, that is mainly produced by your pineal gland (in your brain). While it does serve some other important functions, you could say that its main purpose is to regulate when we fall asleep, and when we wake up: Our circadian rhythm... Which is probably also the reason why you are looking into potentially taking melatonin!

How melatonin exactly affects other functions in our bodies isn't exactly known, but most scientific sources and studies agree that melatonin plays a large role in maintaining homeostasis through regulating our immune system, weight, and by interacting with other hormones - in addition to our circadian rhythm.

Should you take melatonin to help you sleep?

One of the key points to understand about melatonin is; that while it can help you fall asleep - it will unfortunately do very little to help you sleep through. Therefore, it's not a good idea to try and get better sleep by taking melatonin frequently. This is due to the fact that as far as your sleep is concerned; melatonin is mostly for regulating your internal clock in terms of when to fall asleep and when to wake up.

As melatonin also interacts with a number of systems such as your immune system, weight regulation, and other hormones; it is important to be extremely cautious of taking artificial melatonin, as this may have a potential adverse effect on these other systems.

Can you buy melatonin over-the-counter in the UK?

While there are several countries in Europe that sell melatonin tablets in supermarkets or over-the-counter in pharmacies, in the UK unfortunately melatonin is not being sold over-the-counter. Or one could say, fortunaltely. As there seems to be a widespread misconception about melatonin and how it can help one sleep, and as people do have the tendency to try out various remedies without any scientific proof in the hopes of finding a magical cure.

It is important to note that that if you were to purchase melatonin supplements over-the-counter in another country; you'll find that the packaging will advise you that the product is for short-term use only. And we're sure you'd agree; that you would want a long-term solution for your sleep.

The benefits of taking melatonin

Arguably, there can be benefits to taking melatonin. But such benefits are more usually limited for people who either travel frequently, and therefore have slightly-confused internal clocks that require a bit of additional help, or for those who struggle to naturally produce a sufficient amount of melatonin. But for such people, they should only be taking melatonin as recommended and prescribed by their GP or another certified health professional.

For example: As an occasional one-off a person might find it beneficial that if they are experiencing severe jet lag in excess of several hours, by taking a dose of artificial melatonin and instead of lying in bed all night waiting to get tired, they'll be able to 'notify their body' that it's time to go to bed.

Side effects of melatonin

As melatonin is a hormone that has an effect on your body as a hole, the side effects can vary drastically between person-to-person. Some will experience extremely vivid nightmares each time they take melatonin, and some feel depressed and croggy. And due to these potential side effects, it can be extremely counter-intuitive to take melatonin to help you sleep better!

While melatonin as a hormone is considered to be safe, it's best to leave regulating these hormones for your body - or in rare cases a certified health professional.

Conclusion

Like many of the other hormones found in our body, melatonin is an important one for sleeping and wellbeing in general. But as with other hormones, artificially introducing more of these into your body may not be such a good idea. Especially, if you plan on taking melatonin over a long period of time.

For the majority of us, there is no real reason to take melatonin frequently, if at all. What you should do instead, is to support your body's natural melatonin production by being living an active and healthy lifestyle - but also by paying extra attention to how your sleep routine looks like. Please see our blog post for ten tips on how you can improve your sleep. Several of these tips would also be discussed with your GP before even considering any prescribed sleeping-aids, as proper 'sleep hygiene' is extremely important - but unfortunately often overlooked.

Melatonin and taking melatonin can be great for making you fall asleep, but that's about all it's good for for the most of us. It won't help you sleep well, and for some, it can actually reduce the quality of sleep and have other negative side effects!