I struggle with sleep. I hardly ever get greater than 5 to 6 hours an evening — even once I’m exhausted. So, like many individuals, I’ve turned to melatonin every now and then to attempt to assist me get a little bit extra shuteye. However each single time I’ve used melatonin supplements, I’ve spent the next day feeling groggy and simply typically out of it. Ultimately, I received curious sufficient to perform a little digging into this drowsy aspect impact, and I found an attention-grabbing time period: the melatonin hangover.
Clearly, I’m not the one one who has this response to melatonin dietary supplements. To study extra about what a melatonin hangover is, why it impacts some individuals and never others, and how one can presumably stop it, I reached out to a couple sleep specialists and well being professionals. Fellow insomniacs, pay attention up: Right here’s what I discovered.
What’s melatonin?
“Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone in our physique that regulates our sleep-wake cycle and helps us go to sleep, with its preliminary rise beginning when the solar begins to set,” Dr. William Lu, a practising doctor and the medical director for digital sleep clinic Dreem Health, tells Scary Mommy. “It ought to steadily rise all through the evening as we sleep after which lower as we method wake-up time.”
Whereas melatonin happens naturally within the physique, melatonin dietary dietary supplements — sometimes made synthetically — are sometimes used to advertise sleep by individuals with circumstances like continual insomnia, jet lag, delayed sleep-wake section dysfunction, nervousness, and extra.
What’s a “melatonin hangover”? Is that this an actual factor?
After coping with my next-day melatonin haze just a few occasions, I searched social media with one query in thoughts: Can melatonin trigger grogginess the subsequent day? I used to be shocked to see that different individuals who’d additionally skilled this had dubbed the phenomenon a “melatonin hangover.”
Like me, these individuals skilled uncomfortable unintended effects the day after taking melatonin, together with complications, dizziness, moodiness, grogginess, disorientation, and even upset abdomen.
And based on specialists, it actually is a factor that may occur.
“The so-called ‘melatonin hangover’ is actual. Melatonin is a pure hormone that’s secreted throughout sleep, but when taken in extra, it might go away the particular person feeling torpid, groggy, or drained the subsequent morning,” explains Dr. Courtney Scott, medical director of Momentous Recovery Group.
“Further melatonin can tip the physique’s inner steadiness, or circadian rhythm, resulting in decreased alertness for the subsequent day. Different detrimental results of overshooting melatonin consumption embrace elevated blood sugar and neurotransmitter exercise, which might convey out the sensation of fatigue and/or mind fog.”
Why do some individuals get melatonin hangovers and others do not?
For some individuals, our our bodies merely metabolize dietary supplements in a different way, based on Scott.
For instance, it’s not simply melatonin that provides me bother — once I take two Benadryl, it looks like I might sleep for 2 days. So, that’s one issue that makes some individuals extra vulnerable to a melatonin hangover. “Many components have an effect on every particular person in a different way, like metabolism, sensitivity ranges, quantity of pure melatonin produced, and the quantity of melatonin consumed,” provides Scott. “If somebody has an enormous overdose of melatonin, their physique could take for much longer to course of it, particularly when taken proper earlier than mattress or throughout waking hours.”
Dr. Michael Chichak, medical director at MEDvidi, says the distinction in how individuals reply to melatonin consumption may also depend upon “ethnicity, hormonal modifications previous to menopause, age, and pre-existing ranges of melatonin throughout the particular person’s physique.”
Is there something you are able to do to forestall or decrease it?
Right here’s a bit of excellent information, says writer and board-certified integrative doctor Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a famend sleep and fatigue expert: “Melatonin hangovers are unusual.” Extra usually, says Teitelbaum, individuals are drained when waking as a result of they slept poorly.
“In the event that they do discover they solely have this downside the morning after they take melatonin however in any other case really feel higher the remainder of the day when taking melatonin, it’s possible as a result of melatonin stimulates a sleep-supporting hormone known as adenosine,” he explains. “Come morning, some individuals could have suboptimal ranges of the enzyme that turns off the adenosine.”
One simple repair? “On this case, the answer is straightforward — caffeine works by turning off adenosine. So, have a morning cup of espresso or tea to shake off any hangover whereas nonetheless having gotten the improved sleep advantages of the melatonin.”
If melatonin nonetheless makes you’re feeling kind of meh, Teitelbaum recommends attempting different efficient pure sleep aids, equivalent to Nature’s Way Revitalizing Sleep Formula and Terry Naturally Terrific Zzzz.
However Lu agrees that, usually, tweaking your nocturnal habits could make an enormous distinction.
“I hardly ever prescribe melatonin for individuals to provoke sleep. More often than not, an adjustment of the sleeping hours and refinement of sleep hygiene may also help to supply the correct amount of sleep drive to go to sleep simpler … I like to recommend having a constant bedtime and wake-up time each day and getting half-hour of out of doors gentle within the morning after waking,” says Lu.
The entire sleep specialists really useful beginning with the bottom melatonin dose potential (sometimes round 0.5 mg), going as much as not more than 3 mg, and taking the complement one to 2 hours earlier than going to mattress to make sure you’re syncing up along with your pure sleep cycle.
What it’s best to not do is attain for melatonin when you get up and might’t fall again asleep. “It’s best to keep away from taking melatonin in the course of the evening, as this is able to utterly break the sleep-wake cycle and enhance the possibilities of feeling torpid within the mornings,” advises Chichak, who says you shouldn’t hesitate to succeed in out to a healthcare skilled in case your melatonin hangovers persist.
“They will decide whether or not a special sleeping medicine or a extra appropriate behavioral method will work higher for you,” Chichak says, cautioning, “Melatonin ought to solely be used within the brief time period, for instance, when adjusting to completely different time zones or altering when one goes to sleep, versus getting used as a long-term remedy for sleeplessness.”
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