There’s been a lot of talk about melatonin in recent years; so much so that many people now regard it simply as one among many possible sleeping medications. But even though this is the primary chemical in your body that regulates your sleep, it does many other things in the body as well. This means that it really isn’t wise to regard it as just a supplement you can take to tinker with and fix your disturbed sleep patterns. You need to be aware of possible adverse effects, and also how extra doses of this hormone might interact with other medications you might be taking.
If your circadian rhythms are already off kilter, meaning that you can’t get to sleep when you should, taking a melatonin supplement could actually disrupt them even more. You could take too high a dose, and find it working so well that you can’t manage to stay awake during the day. The correct dosages are not easy to gauge. Using melatonin sleeping medications can also produce very vivid dreams and nightmares, meaning that while you might get more sleep than usual, it’s not likely to be very restful.
But there are other ways melatonin might react within your body that could indicate trying different sleeping medications instead. For example, because melatonin is so closely linked to how the female reproductive system functions, taking extra supplements of the hormone could have unwanted effects in that area. Pregnant or nursing women might find it interfering with their fertility, for example. Melatonin might produce a decreased sperm count or breast enlargement in men, and might result in decreased libido for both men and women. Melatonin supplements aren’t just simple sleep aids, but could have serious effects in realms that aren’t directly related to sleep.
Be aware, too, that melatonin sleeping medications sometimes behave like drugs rather than simple herbal supplements, when they encounter other medications you’re taking. If they reduce or nullify the affects of an antidepressant, that’s not a good thing. Other side effects can be equally alarming, such as changing how well a diabetic can process insulin. So it’s clearly a bad move to regard melatonin supplements as some kind of natural, harmless fix for sleep problems. You will need to treat this potential fix more carefully than that.