Nutritional factors also play a role in melatonin production, but less so than exposure to daylight and nighttime darkness. “Other common causes include disturbances in the sleep wake cycle caused by jet lag or shift work.” “The natural release of melatonin can be altered by cellphone screens, TVs, and bright lights throughout the house,” says Anjali Kohli, MD, internist at Houston Methodist Primary Care Group. The reasons why are varied some people struggle to sleep well when they have certain medical or mental health conditions, like anxiety or depression, while others can trace their sleeplessness to situational or environmental causes. īut many people don’t produce these higher levels in the evenings, which means their body clocks aren’t sending them the right signals. In young adults, daytime peak values of melatonin are 10 picograms (a picogram is 1 trillionth of a gram) per milliliter, and nighttime peak values are 60 pg per milliliter. From there, production decreases by about 10% to 15% every decade. Infants produce only small amounts of the hormone, but melatonin production is highest between the ages of 1-3 years. Secretion of the hormone begins after darkness and peaks between 2-4 a.m., decreasing gradually from there. Normally, melatonin levels increase at night. (This is why you generally feel sleepy around the same time every night.) Natural melatonin regulates your body’s circadian rhythms, or the “clock” that tells your body what time of day or night it is and what it’s supposed to be doing every day at those times, according to the Society for Endocrinology. The sleep hormone melatonin comes from a small gland in the brain called the pineal gland, whose primary job is melatonin production. RELATED: Get melatonin coupons | Learn more about melatonin What is melatonin? But is melatonin safe to take? And how do you know what’s the right dose for you? Here’s how to figure it out. Because supplements aren’t prescriptions, they’re available over the counter and often considered a “natural” or safer way to find relief from sleeplessness. In fact, a 2021 sleep survey by SingleCare found that 20% of respondents reported taking a natural supplement like melatonin to sleep better. For many people with sleep problems, taking a melatonin supplement before bed seems like the best option.
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