Melatonin sleep aid – forget about sleepless nights
Have sleepless nights been your best friend since eternity? Do you go to war with yourself every night convincing sleep to come over? If these questions relate to your heart, then you are probably a victim of melatonin deficiency my friend. In simple terms, you can call it insomnia. Lack of melatonin sleep aid is the main cause of insomnia although other reasons may be responsible. These include overuse of caffeine, mental stress at work or emotional stress in your daily life.
Melatonin sleep aid — Its importance and impacts
Today it is time to focus on this natural hormone of our pineal gland and its importance in the human body.
It’s pretty fascinating how your body reacts to sunlight and darkness. Your eyes pick up the transition from day to night and send signals to the brain to start secreting melatonin from your pineal gland. Every hormone has a purpose, and melatonin’s primary function is sleep. As night prevails, your body provides melatonin sleep aid which is at its peak around 10 p.m. and is least during the daytime.
In addition to this, melatonin is an antioxidant which promotes cell recovery and boosts our immune system. Its few additional benefits include:
- Prevents the growth of cancer cells.
- Minimizes the effects of estrogen on tumor growth.
- Prevents fibromyalgia.
- Helps with seasonal affective disorder and depression.
Alarming situations arise when work deprives you of your natural melatonin process. This is the leading cause of insomnia. But, no need to worry yet! By identifying the underlying problems, it will allow you to cure your ailments.
Factors leading to low Melatonin
Lack of exposure to sunlight during daytime
One of the leading causes for low levels of melatonin is the lack of sufficient exposure to sunlight. It is quite common these days due to increased working hours everywhere around the world. People enter their offices during the early hours of the day and leave post sunset, contributing to lowering of melatonin production in their body.
People who predominantly work during night shifts
Another problem with today’s industrial and professional world is the growing culture of late night shifts. People work throughout the night and get back home only during the day and have some sleep. However, this complicates the existing body clock leading to destabilisation of the sleep-wake cycle.
Stress leading to a lack of sleep
In a survey conducted in the UK called the British Sleep Survey, it was established that about 442,000 individuals in Britain experienced illness or lack of sleep owing to work related stress.
Even without going into the depths of the survey, every working professional can attest to the fact that work stress can often get beyond hand. It is, in fact, one of the leading causes for insomnia.
Increased frequency of travel.
Constant long distance travel has become a part and parcel of people’s daily lives. However, what happens when they fly across countries is that their bodies need to re-adjust to the local time zone. In doing so, they experience something known as ‘jet lag’ — a commonly used term these days.
The body ends up feeling tired and lethargic, unable to concentrate or get much work done. While the feeling more often than not goes away in a matter of a few days, having to constantly re-adjust time scales has long detrimental impacts on the body. It causes an imbalance of the sleep wake cycle, which takes quite long to get over.
Uncontrolled use of gadgets such as smartphones and computers before sleep.
We are a generation of Netflix binge-watchers, Instagram hoggers and Facebook junkies. Sometimes, the line between use and over-use of these applications can get blurry. Quite often, an unhealthy obsession with gadgets such as smartphones, tablets and laptops cause people to stay up late in the night, leading to reduction of melatonin production. Clearly, this further causes sleep disturbances.
Treatment and cure
The above scenarios might have helped you by now to determine the underlying cause. However, the levels of melatonin needed to be rejuvenated and one of the most effective ways to do so is by using any melatonin natural sleep aids.
Sleeping for 6–8 hours a day is essential if one wants to feel refreshed and rejuvenated. Natural sleeping pills use a combination of valerian roots along with extracts of hop and lemon balm. These, when combined with melatonin in your blood, promotes the perfect good night sleep that you require.
A few more relevant approaches to accelerate the melatonin sleep aid process would include turning off the lights before 10 P.M. or reducing your exposure to blue light. The blue light here refers to smartphone, television and computer screens over exposure to which can hinder the natural working of these natural sleeping pills.
The blue light from these screens are short wavelength enriched. More than light of any other wavelength, short wavelength enriched blue light reduces levels of melatonin. This ends up resetting the circadian rhythm of the body.
For best results, along with your melatonin sleep aid, you must also cut down on the hours of spending in front of the computer or TV screens during late hours.
Working principle of melatonin sleep aids
Roots of valeria are known to treat anxiety. In other words, it calms down your nervous system. This, in turn, decreases stress which is an undeniable cause of insomnia. Therefore, these roots compliment the melatonin sleep aid process which not only compensates for the deficit of melatonin in your body but also helps to treat depression and blood pressure.
The Valerian roots also work like a charm in lowering blood pressure. High blood pressure is a common tendency exhibited by lots of working professionals these days owing to work related stress. Sustained high blood pressure over a period of time increases the chance of heart attack and sudden strokes.
Another benefit of the valerian root ingredient is that it provides relief from menstrual cramps in women. This is because it acts as muscle relaxer and an antispasmodic, easing the discomfort faced by women during PMS.
Therefore, one can say that reliable melatonin sleeping tablets such as those from Dr Backhaus are natural remedies for insomnia and are crucial in treating insomnia. It is worth remembering that to get the best results, one must follow the above conditions.