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 every now and then to attempt to assist me get a 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. Finally, I received curious sufficient to do some 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 be taught extra about what a melatonin hangover is, why it impacts some folks and never others, and how one can probably forestall it, I reached out to a couple sleep specialists and well being professionals. Fellow insomniacs, hear up: Right here’s what I realized.
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 — usually made synthetically — are sometimes used to advertise sleep by folks with circumstances like power 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 a number of occasions, I searched social media with one query in thoughts: Can melatonin trigger grogginess the following 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 folks skilled uncomfortable unwanted side effects the day after taking melatonin, together with complications, dizziness, moodiness, grogginess, disorientation, and even upset abdomen.
And in response to specialists, it really 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 individual feeling torpid, groggy, or drained the following morning,” explains Dr. Courtney Scott, medical director of Momentous Recovery Group.
“Further melatonin can tip the physique’s inner stability, or circadian rhythm, resulting in diminished alertness for the following day. Different damaging 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 folks get melatonin hangovers and others do not?
For some folks, our our bodies merely metabolize dietary supplements in another way, 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 folks extra prone to a melatonin hangover. “Many components have an effect on every particular person in another 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 might 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 folks reply to melatonin consumption may also depend upon “ethnicity, hormonal adjustments 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 stop or reduce it?
Right here’s a bit of excellent information, says creator and board-certified integrative doctor Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a famend sleep and fatigue expert: “Melatonin hangovers are unusual.” Extra typically, says Teitelbaum, persons 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 folks might 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 are feeling type of meh, Teitelbaum recommends attempting different efficient pure sleep aids, comparable 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 folks 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 quantity 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 outside gentle within the morning after waking,” says Lu.
The entire sleep specialists really useful beginning with the bottom melatonin dose doable (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 together with your pure sleep cycle.
What it is best to not do is attain for melatonin in case you get up and might’t fall again asleep. “It’s best to keep away from taking melatonin in the midst of the evening, as this might fully wreck the sleep-wake cycle and enhance the possibilities 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’ll decide whether or not a unique sleeping remedy or a extra appropriate behavioral method will work higher for you,” Chichak says, cautioning, “Melatonin ought to solely be used within the quick 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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