Melatonin is a chemical substance (hormone) that helps your body know when it’s time to sleep or wake up. Your body releases this hormone when your environment becomes dark. This will then send signals to your brain to become less alert, thus, making you feel sleepy.
Apart from the melatonin produced by your body, you can also take melatonin as a dietary supplement. They come in pills, liquids, and chewable. Melatonin is also present in little amounts in some foods such as tart cherries, goji berries, milk, egg, and nuts.
Why take melatonin?
People use melatonin when they have insomnia, a common sleep disorder that can make it pretty difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, or cause you to wake up too early and unable to get back to sleep. This can last a few nights, months, or even years.
What are the risks involved?
Melatonin is generally safe when it is used for a short period. Unlike some other medications that are used as sleep aids, melatonin doesn’t cause withdrawal or symptoms of dependence. It doesn’t lead to a sleep “hangover,” and you don’t build up a tolerance for it. In other words, it doesn’t cause you to need more and more of it as time goes on.
However, you may experience some side effects like headache, dizziness, nausea, and drowsiness. Other side effects are mild anxiety, distress or uneasiness of mind, abdominal cramps, irritability, confusion, or disorientation. These side effects are seen only in a few individuals taking melatonin. Melatonin may also cause you to sleep during the day so you are advised not to drive or use machinery five hours after taking the supplement.
Melatonin may react with some medications and cause harm to your body if you take them at or around the same time. If you’re thinking about taking melatonin supplements to aid your sleep, consult your doctor first. He can help you determine if you should take melatonin or not, the quantity you should take at once, and for how long you should take it.
