40 Winks with Melatonin
You’ve likely heard of melatonin as a sleep aid. But what is it and how does it work? Well, melatonin is already inside you, circulating around in your body and night. It’s a hormone that’s produced from a small pea-like (adrenal) gland deep in the center of your brain. Technically, melatonin is the result from the conversion of serotonin which comes from the pineal gland.
Okay, enough with the technicalities. Melatonin supplements only augment the amount of melatonin inside you. Because it is believed that less melatonin is produced as your body ages, taking additional melatonin supplements restores the amounts to youthful levels, back when the hormone was much more abundant.
Does it work? I personally tried it and it worked for a couple months of continual usage, but then I developed the dreaded tolerance and it didn’t work nearly as well. Increasing the dosage helped in the short-term but eventually the dreaded tolerance reared its ugly head again. Ultimately “cycling” the melatonin on a two day “on”, one day “off” pattern worked the best and avoided the tolerance issue.
Vivid crazy nightmares. That is one serious side effect that I experienced from taking melatonin. Very realistic, very gory dreams. The type of dreams that when you eventually do wake up, you shake your head a few times and say “holy shit!”
Melatonin works quite well, especially with regular cycling. Just repeat to yourself that you will not go looking for your lost cat in dark areas as you start to fall asleep with this stuff. Why do people do that anyway? Is the lost cat ever found?? Don’t get me wrong, I like my cat too…..but come on!!
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