I struggle with sleep. I not often get greater than 5 to 6 hours an evening — even once I’m exhausted. So, like many individuals, I’ve turned to melatonin now and again to attempt to assist me get just a little 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 bought curious sufficient to do some digging into this drowsy facet impact, and I found an fascinating time period: the melatonin hangover.
Clearly, I’m not the one one who has this response to melatonin dietary supplements. To be taught 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 some sleep specialists and well being professionals. Fellow insomniacs, hear 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 training doctor and the medical director for digital sleep clinic Dreem Health, tells Scary Mommy. “It ought to steadily rise all through the night time as we sleep after which lower as we method wake-up time.”
Whereas melatonin happens naturally within the physique, melatonin dietary dietary supplements — usually made synthetically — are sometimes used to advertise sleep by individuals with circumstances like continual insomnia, jet lag, delayed sleep-wake section dysfunction, anxiousness, and extra.
What’s a “melatonin hangover”? Is that this an actual factor?
After coping with my next-day melatonin haze a number of occasions, I searched social media with one query in thoughts: Can melatonin trigger grogginess the subsequent day? I used to be stunned to see that different individuals who’d additionally skilled this had dubbed the phenomenon a “melatonin hangover.”
Like me, these individuals skilled uncomfortable uncomfortable side effects the day after taking melatonin, together with complications, dizziness, moodiness, grogginess, disorientation, and even upset abdomen.
And in response to 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 could depart the particular person feeling torpid, groggy, or drained the subsequent morning,” explains Dr. Courtney Scott, medical director of Momentous Recovery Group.
“Additional melatonin can tip the physique’s inner stability, or circadian rhythm, resulting in decreased alertness for the subsequent day. Different damaging results of overshooting melatonin consumption embody 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 otherwise, in response to Scott.
For instance, it’s not simply melatonin that offers me hassle — once I take two Benadryl, it looks like I may sleep for 2 days. So, that’s one issue that makes some individuals extra prone to a melatonin hangover. “Many components have an effect on every particular person otherwise, 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 can even rely on “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 reduce it?
Right here’s a bit of fine information, says writer and board-certified integrative doctor Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a famend sleep and fatigue expert: “Melatonin hangovers are unusual.” Extra typically, 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 probably as a result of melatonin stimulates a sleep-supporting hormone referred to as adenosine,” he explains. “Come morning, some individuals could have suboptimal ranges of the enzyme that turns off the adenosine.”
One straightforward repair? “On this case, the answer is easy — 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 type of meh, Teitelbaum recommends making an attempt different efficient pure sleep aids, akin to Nature’s Way Revitalizing Sleep Formula and Terry Naturally Terrific Zzzz.
However Lu agrees that, typically, tweaking your nocturnal habits could make an enormous distinction.
“I not often prescribe melatonin for individuals to provoke sleep. More often than not, an adjustment of the sleeping hours and refinement of sleep hygiene may help to supply the correct quantity of sleep drive to go to sleep simpler … I like to recommend having a constant bedtime and wake-up time on daily basis and getting half-hour of out of doors gentle within the morning after waking,” says Lu.
All the sleep specialists really useful beginning with the bottom melatonin dose attainable (usually 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 for those who get up and might’t fall again asleep. “It’s best to keep away from taking melatonin in the midst of the night time, as this might fully spoil the sleep-wake cycle and improve the probabilities of feeling torpid within the mornings,” advises Chichak, who says you shouldn’t hesitate to achieve out to a healthcare skilled in case your melatonin hangovers persist.
“They will decide whether or not a unique sleeping treatment 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 treatment for sleeplessness.”
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