Melatonin - Using The Dracula Of Hormones To Treat Jet Lag

Apr 3
17:30

2007

Donald Saunders

Donald Saunders

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Jet lag affects millions of travelers every year, whether traveling on business or for pleasure, and increasingly people are turning to melatonin to help both prevent and cure jet lag. But just what is melatonin, how does it work and is it an effective jet lag remedy?

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Melatonin is a natural hormone produced by the pea-sized pineal gland situated just above the middle of the brain and,Melatonin - Using The Dracula Of Hormones To Treat Jet Lag Articles when released into the bloodstream, melatonin induces a state or tiredness and helps you to both fall asleep and to enjoy a deep level of sleep.

The key to the release of melatonin is light which switches the body's natural internal clock on and off. When light enters the eye it stimulates the retina and excites a nerve pathway between the eye and an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Within the hypothalamus a second area, known as the supra-chiasmatic nucleus (SCN), in turn sends signals to other areas of the body which control the body's temperature and other things that either make you feel tired or wide awake.

In the case of the pineal gland light causes the SCN to switch off the production of melatonin, while darkness switches the pineal gland on and melatonin is released into the bloodstream. It is the fact that the release of melatonin is triggered by the arrival of darkness that results in it sometimes being referred to as the "Dracula of hormones".

One important point to note here is the importance of light to the production of melatonin. We often talk about a shift in the body's internal clock, perhaps through changes in work patterns, but it is not the shift in the clock that upsets the production of melatonin. The pineal gland will only be switched on in darkness and even relatively low levels of artificial indoor lighting are enough to switch off the release of melatonin into the bloodstream.

When you travel across several world time zones your internal body clock is no longer in sync with local time and you find that you are wide awake when everybody else is sound asleep. It has been suggested therefore that one way to help to gradually bring your internal clock back into sync is to use melatonin to induce sleep at a time when the pineal gland would not normally be producing it.

This is certainly not a bad idea and many people do indeed report that taking melatonin has proved helpful. There are however two things that you need to bear in mind before reaching for melatonin as a magic jet lag remedy.

The first is that there are many factors which affect the body's ability to sleep and melatonin is only one small part of a complex sleep wake cycle. Melatonin alone will not therefore produce very good results and it needs to be used as just one part of an overall plan to combat jet lag.

The second is that melatonin is the only hormone which is available without prescription and this lack of regulation in its production and use can present problems.

Because melatonin occurs naturally in some foods it may be sold as a dietary supplement, alongside vitamins and minerals, and is available in many health food stores. As a result melatonin is also manufactured in synthetic form but there is little or no regulation of the factories in which production takes place or indeed of the amount of melatonin contained in the tablets which you purchase. This often means that the quantity of melatonin contained in a pill and that stated on the packaging are not always the same.

Commercially available melatonin is often sold in tablets which contain far higher levels than are found naturally in the body and indeed, in many cases, levels can be as much as twenty times natural blood levels. In addition, there is no requirement to list side-effects when selling melatonin as a supplement and these can be significant. Apart from causing fatigue and depression in some users, melatonin can also cause raised blood pressure and even affect fertility.

Many people do find that melatonin is helpful as a jet lag remedy but, if you do decide to use it, then you should purchase it only from reputable outlets, use it in very small doses and take it as just one part of a wider plan to prevent or combat jet lag.