Melatonin: A Safe, Natural Sleep Aid?

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Melatonin is a hormone normally made in our pineal gland. It helps regulate our circadian rhythm, by making us sleepy.

  • It also helps regulate our immune function, blood pressure, and promotes HGH production.

    • Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is important for maintaining bone and muscle mass, especially as we get older.

  • Melatonin doesn’t create dependency, and it does promote “normal” healthy sleep, rather than being a tranquilizer. We don’t develop a tolerance to it, so the same dose will keep on working.

  • Toxicity is very low (and its elimination half-life very quick), so for most people it’s very safe, though like most things, it can interfere with some medications:

    • We mentioned that melatonin helps regulate immune function, so for example that’s something to bear in mind if you’re on immunosuppressants or otherwise have an autoimmune disorder.

    • It can also interfere with blood pressure medications and blood thinners, and may make epilepsy meds less effective.

• At 10almonds, we believe that physical and mental wellness come hand-in-hand, so to speak, and this is definitely the case when it comes to sexual wellbeing.

  • Today’s sponsor, Foria, are offering a range of botanical oils, bath salts, lubes, and even suppositories, designed to enhance every pleasurable experience your night may have in store.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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The “one ingredient” is… drumroll please… chickpeas. But, there’s a trick to it:

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💊 MAIN FEATURE

Melatonin: A safe sleep supplement?

Melatonin is a hormone normally made in our pineal gland. It helps regulate our circadian rhythm, by making us sleepy.

It has other roles too—it has a part to play in regulating immune function, something that also waxes and wanes as a typical day goes by.

Additionally, since melatonin and cortisol are antagonistic to each other, a sudden increase in either will decrease the other. Our brain takes advantage of this, by giving us a cortisol spike in the morning to help us wake up.

As a supplement, it’s generally enjoyed with the intention of inducing healthy, natural, restorative sleep.

Does it really induce healthy, natural, restorative, sleep?

Yes! Well, “natural” is a little subject and relative, if you’re taking it as a supplement, but it’s something your body produces naturally anyway.

Contrast with, for example, benzodiazepines (that whole family of medications with names ending in -azopan or -alozam), or other tranquilizing drugs that do not so much induce healthy sleep, but rather reduce your brain function and hopefully knock you out, and/but often have unwanted side effects, and a tendency to create dependency.

Melatonin, unlike most of those drugs, does not create dependency, and furthermore, we don’t develop tolerance to it. In other words, the same dose will continue working (we won’t need more and more).

In terms of benefits, melatonin not only reduces the time to fall asleep and increases total sleep time, but also (quite a bonus) improves sleep quality, too:

Meta-Analysis: Melatonin for the Treatment of Primary Sleep Disorders

Because it is a natural hormone rather than a drug with many side effects and interactions, it’s also beneficial for those who need good sleep and/but don’t want tranquilizing:

The Efficacy of Oral Melatonin in Improving Sleep in Cancer Patients with Insomnia: A Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Study

Any other benefits?

Yes! It can also help guard against Seasonal Affective Disorder, also called seasonal depression. Because SAD is not just about “not enough light = not enough serotonin”, but also partly about circadian rhythm and (the body is not so sure what time of day it is when there are long hours of darkness, or even, in the other hemisphere / other time of year, long hours of daylight), melatonin can help, by giving your brain something to “anchor” onto, provided you take it at the same time each day. See:

• Is seasonal affective disorder a disorder of circadian rhythms?

• The circadian basis of winter depression: the case for low-dose melatonin use

As a small bonus, melatonin also promotes HGH production (important for maintaining bone and muscle mass, especially in later life):

Melatonin stimulates growth hormone secretion through pathways other than the growth hormone-releasing hormone

Anything we should worry about?

Assuming taking a recommended dose only (0.5mg–10mg per day), toxicity is highly unlikely, especially given that it has a half-life of only 40–60 minutes, so it’ll be eliminated quite quickly.

However! It does indeed induce sleepiness, so for example, don’t take melatonin and then try to drive or operate heavy machinery—or, ideally, do anything other than go to bed.

It can interfere with some medications. We mentioned that melatonin helps regulate immune function, so for example that’s something to bear in mind if you’re on immunosuppressants or otherwise have an autoimmune disorder. It can also interfere with blood pressure medications and blood thinners, and may make epilepsy meds less effective.

As ever, if in doubt, please speak with your doctor and/or pharmacist.

Where to get it?

As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here is an example product on Amazon.

Enjoy!

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Foria | Award-Winning Formulas For The Sex You Deserve

At 10almonds, we believe that physical and mental wellness come hand-in-hand, so to speak, and this is definitely the case when it comes to sexual wellbeing.

Foria’s Intimacy Collection is a range of botanical oils, bath salts, lubes, and even suppositories, designed to enhance every pleasurable experience that your night may have in store.

As you may gather from their logo, they often have CBD oil as a star ingredient, but they have products without CBD too, if you prefer that.

After all, this is all about having things just right for you.

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

🌎 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

• The fall virus season is approaching. Which vaccines should you get?

• What to know about malaria in the US, as the country reports its first home-grown cases in decades

• Breakthrough in scarless wound recovery achieved with autologous blood

• Transgender Californians suffered alarming levels of physical & sexual violence in the past year

• Supply chains of crucial drugs threatened by climate risks

• It may not be too late to get your HPV vaccine

• Scientist who first reported human-to-human transmission of COVID recommends measures to prepare for the next phase of pandemic

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It – by Dr. Chris Winter

This book's blurb contains a bold claim:

So, how well does it deliver, on the strength of being a whole book rather than an Internet article?

Well, for sure we wouldn't have the room to include all the information that Dr. Winter does, in one of our main feature articles here (we'd need to spread it out over several weeks, at least).

He examines very thoroughly what is going on with sleep, sleep disturbance, and sleep deprivation. What's going on with the different phases of sleep (far more than your phone's sleep app will), and how imbalances in these can cause problems.

While the usual sleep hygiene tips do get a mention, he broadly assumes we know that part already. Instead, he focuses on aligning as many components as possible of our rich and interesting circadian rhythm. Yes, even if that means clawing our way out of insomnia and/or a bad sleep schedule (or lack of coherent sleep schedule) first. He gives plenty of practical advice on how to do that.

Bottom line: if you'd like to more deeply understand sleep, what is or isn't wrong with yours, and how you can fix it, this book is a great resource.

Click here to check out The Sleep Solution, and enjoy the benefits of better rest!

Wishing you the most well-informed start to the week,

The 10almonds Team