It's a hormone, not a supplement. Here's why relying on exogenous melatonin might be disrupting your natural rhythm.
The Hormone Misconception
Walk into any pharmacy, and you will see shelves lined with melatonin gummies, sprays, and pills, often marketed as harmless sleep aids. However, melatonin is not a supplement in the traditional sense; it is a potent hormone produced by the pineal gland. Its primary role is to signal to the body that it is time to sleep, acting as a circadian regulator rather than a sedative.
When you introduce exogenous melatonin into your system nightly, you risk disrupting your body's natural production loops. Studies suggest that while effective for jet lag or shift work, long-term use for general insomnia can lead to a dependency where the body downregulates its own production, creating a cycle of reliance.
The Dosage Problem
Most commercial supplements contain doses ranging from 3mg to 10mg. To put this in perspective, the body naturally produces approximately 0.3mg per night. This means many users are flooding their receptors with 10 to 30 times the physiological amount. This supraphysiological dosing is often the culprit behind the common side effects: vivid nightmares, next-day grogginess, and hormonal desensitization.
A Better Approach
True sleep health comes from supporting the body's ability to produce its own melatonin. This involves managing light exposure—getting bright light in the morning and dimming lights in the evening—and providing the raw materials for hormone production, such as tryptophan and magnesium, rather than replacing the hormone entirely.
