Melatonin And Sleep: Hormone And Supplement Effects On Sleep

Melatonin is best known as the hormone that makes sleep possible. Manufactured in the pineal gland of the brain every night, melatonin shuts down the parts of the brain associated with waking activity to allow you to have a comfotrtable and restorative resting period.

Melatonin “Turns Out the Lights” All Over the Body

Melatonin also “turns the light off” in nerve centers elsewhere in the body. There are melatonin receptors in the gastrointestinal tract. When these receptors are put to sleep, the stomach is less likely to rumble, the colon releases less gas, and stomach acid is less likely to reflux upward into the throat. This serves the purpose of allowing us to sleep without interruptions to go to the bathroom.

There are also melatonin receptors in the skin. The flow of melatonin relaxes the skin so that sebum can flow out of pores to lubricate the skin and smooth out wrinkles, also keeping plugs of this essential skin oil from clogging pores and causing acne.

There are melatonin receptors in the thymus gland. Melatonin tells this part of the immune system to make infection-fighting B cells at night, when more resources are free for this activity.

Blue Light Is the Enemy of Melatonin

This hormone of sleep helps the receptors for light in the retinas of the eye, making it easy to ignore visual stimuli in the bedroom, except for the receptors for blue light. As long as the retina senses even a tiny amount of blue light, the brain cannot make melatonin to let the body sleep.

Before the age of electric light, this property of melatonin helped people deal with seasonal changes in the length of night and day. On long summer days, the brain does not start making melatonin while the sun is still up. On long summer nights, the brain is able to shut down earlier to allow for longer sleep.

In the modern world, this property of the pineal gland is a major problem for getting good sleep. Even the tiniest amount of blue light, the amount of light that can be seen when the eyelids are closed, even from a night light, a smartphone screen, or a hall light shining through the cracks of closed door, stops the production of melatonin. Sleep still occurs, but it is not the whole-body restful sleep that is achieved when the brain is allowed to make melatonin in total darkness.

Many Plants Are Sources of Melatonin

One way to make up for exposure to light at night is to take supplemental melatonin, but supplements are not the only way to get melatonin that your brain does not have to make. Many plants make melatonin, and eating these plants can make up for the melatonin that you are not able to produce as a result of exposure to blue light at night.

There are clinically significant amounts of melatonin in St. John's wort and in Montmorency cherries. Montmorency cherries manufacture melatonin during the height of summer, when they are exposed to the maximum amount of blue light, and when the humans and animals that eat them are in greatest need of nighttime rest.

Melatonin is also made by a plant known as Harpagophytum procumbens, a creeping desert plant also called devil's claw. This herb could be used as a sleep aid, but its primarily use for medicinal reasons is as a treatment for pain — and it turns out that the relief of pain is one more way melatonin can improve sleep and improve quality of life. In fact, scientists now also believe that the way St. John's wort treats depression is by relieving pain and inflammation.

Melatonin As A Natural Pain Reliever

Although African herbalists have been using devil's claw as an analgesic for joint pain for hundreds of years, with great success, it has been little known in the western world. But scientists have only recently realized that the pain relieving chemical in devil's claw is melatonin, and have begun to explore its potential.

Melatonin Switches Off Pain Receptors

In addition to all the other sites in the body that are influenced by melatonin, it turns out that this hormone also switches off two classes of pain receptors known as MT1 and MT2. These pain receptors are found at the front and the back of the spin in the lumbar (lower back) and at thoracic (chest) levels.

If you have lower back pain, for example, melatonin makes it possible for you to get better sleep by numbing the MT1 and MT2 pain receptors in the lumbar spine during the night. If you have a chest cold, melatonin help you sleep better despite tightness in the chest and soreness in muscles that have been exhausted by coughing fits.

Melatonin Stops Inflammatory Pain

Melatonin is particularly effective against pain caused by inflammation. Laboratory tests conducted on animals have found that melatonin relieves pain caused by the hot pepper extract known as capsaicin. It will also relieve the pain caused by allergic skin reactions, skin infections, tired and sore muscles, and autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and the relatively rare conditions such as Dressler syndrome that occur after surgery, especially heart surgery.

Melatonin Stops the Pain of Neuropathy

Melatonin is also effective against pain caused by neuropathy. Neuropathy is a chronic tingling, burning, and stabbing pain that is experienced by most people who have had diabetes for 10 years or more. Neuropathic pain also occurs in people who have shingles and herpes, conditions that are common enough that you probably know exactly what we are talking about.

This kind of pain causes unpleasant sensations night and day, but especially at night. Melatonin helps relieve this kind of pain all over the body so sleep is easier. Unfortunately, because melatonin also induces sleep, you wouldn't want to take melatonin supplements to control either kind of pain during the day.

Many Painful Conditions Relieved by Melatonin

What painful conditions are relieved by melatonin? There are clinical trials that find that melatonin is helpful in relieving the pain caused by:

• Fibromyalgia

• Post-traumatic stress disorder

• Irritable bowel syndrome

• Neck injuries

• Back injuries

• Peptic ulcers disease

Melatonin doesn't so much stop pain as it helps the brain ignore pain signals that don't protect the body. If you start to step on a tack with your bare foot, a pain signal helps your central nervous system direct your muscles to stop before you step down hard. If you have a rash from poison ivy, pain signals just hurt and hurt some more. Melatonin helps the locus ceruleus of the brain route signals to destinations that rank them as “important” or “unimportant” so you only feel pain that you can do something about.

Melatonin also helps the brain deal with deficiencies of adrenal hormones and serotonin. It does not force the body to make more of these hormones, but allows the brain to operate better with the amounts it has.

Melatonin Supplements and Natural Alternatives That Cost Nothing at All

Melatonin supplements are safe, effective, and side-effect free, as long as they are taken about hour before bedtime. Taken during the day, or taken late at night, they will induce sleep at the wrong part of the circadian cycle, making it hard to fight drowsiness during the day.

There's essentially no dosage of melatonin that is so large that it causes any other kind of undesirable effect. In Italy, many clinics offer their elderly patients and cancer patients up to 20 mg of melatonin every night for pain control, although as little as 1 mg may be enough to help make it easier to fall asleep.

It's not always necessary to take a melatonin supplement to get more melatonin into your system. You can take St. John's wort—but it is very important not to mix St. John's wort and prescription antidepressants. The combination can be so stimulating that it induces a “serotonin crisis,” causing a swing from depression to hypomania.

It's also possible to get the benefits of melatonin by eating sour cherries. This takes about ½ a cup (50-60 grams) for a sleep-inducing effect.

But the most important way to ensure that you get all the benefits of melatonin for both sleep and pain relief is to sleep in a totally dark room. Even a tiny amount of blue light will prevent your pineal gland from making the melatonin your body needs for sleep and pain relief.

Can't sleep without a night light? Try sleeping with a sleep mask. Or if you can't sleep with a sleep mask, make sure you have a red or yellow night light rather than a clear or blue one.

Or just take a melatonin supplement. As little as 1 mg may make a difference, although most people sleep best after taking 3 mg of more. Always take melatonin when you are ready to go to bed, not earlier in the evening, and not when you have been up all night tossing and turning. Used correctly, melatonin will help you get your zzz's and waking up feeling refreshed and pain-free.