If you’re having sleep problems and have been considering taking melatonin supplements, then there are natural melatonin options available to you that can bypass any worries about synthetic hormones. If you’re going to take actual supplements, enough concerns exist about potential side effects that could result from them that your wisest course will be to speak to your doctor first of all. It’s possible that the melatonin might react with another medication you’re taking, for example. Or if you have an autoimmune disorder, melatonin supplements might affect your condition. So it’s not wise just to go grab a bottle of pills in a health food store and take them without medical advice.
There are natural sources of melatonin that you could take advantage of before you even try supplements, which will not create the same sorts of concerns. Melatonin supplements in the past have been made from the ground-up pineal glands of cows. Because of the risk of spreading disease that comes along with that version of melatonin, many people consider supplements created in the laboratory to be much safer and more desirable. But now it’s been discovered that melatonin is also produced in certain plants. So this has opened up a new sort of melatonin solution for people.
The leaves and flowers of both fever few and St. John’s Wort provide plentiful natural melatonin, so you might manage to cover your melatonin needs with regular cups of herbal tea. Or you could sprinkle melatonin-laden seeds into your salads, breads and muffins. With a liberal intake of sunflower and poppy seeds, alfalfa seeds and cardamom, you may have your very own advanced sleep formula without the need to find such things in a bottle at the health food store.
The type of natural melatonin that the health food markets have gotten enthusiastic about, however, is that derived from tart cherries. While it’s true that you’d need to eat an awful lot of Montmorency cherries to get the same melatonin kick as you do with fever few, the marketers promote the cherry juice rather than raw cherries, which will result in higher concentrations. With the new emerging health information, it may be possible to introduce melatonin into your system via foods rather than unregulated supplements.