Is Melatonin a help?

The current issue of TIME Magazine has an article titled Sleep All Day! all about Melatonin, by Sora Song.  Apparently, recent studies have shown that melatonin is of dubious benefit at night, but of more benefit during the day.

In other words, if you want to sleep during the day, melatonin may help.  The reason is that melatonin is naturally released by your body at night, so the extra doesn’t seem to help.  During the day, however, your body doesn’t create the melatonin, so the supplement helped.

Now I’ve mentioned here before that melatonin may be helpful for migraineurs.  Now the evidence really is slim on melatonin in general, but before you give up on the idea, consider this.  If you suffer from migraine, your body may not be producing melatonin normally in the first place.  That’s because melatonin is part of the serotonin chain reaction, and serotonin levels have long been linked to migraine.

If it only helps you sleep better, you may find it’s worth it.  Getting a good 8 hours’ sleep, with some before midnight, is going to help you cope better and will probably improve your migraine situation.  It’s unclear if there are other reasons why melatonin helps the migraine sufferer.  You might even consider trying it temporarily if it seems your migraine attacks have spun out of control.  Be sure to check with your doctor.  Melatonin has also been studied as a help to tension and cluster headache patients.

It also seems that a little melatonin is all you need.  The study mentioned in TIME said that 0.3mg was as good as 5mg.  The migraine study used 3mg, and it’s often sold in 3mg tablets.  I’ve recommended Nature’s Bounty Melatonin, but Natrol Melatonin is also very highly rated.  It’s becoming more available locally, just be sure to chose a brand you trust.