Natural Sources Of Melatonin To Help You Sleep The Entire Night (Sans Hormones)

Walk down any pharmacy aisle and you'll likely find at least one bottle of high-dose melatonin (3 to 5 milligrams, or even higher) claiming to help promote better sleep (in the U.S. at least, since it's only available as a prescription in most other countries). However, as Ashley Jordan Ferira, Ph.D., RDN explained on an episode of the mindbodygreen podcast, the science behind using melatonin as a nightly sleep supplement is shaky at best—and harmful at worst.

Melatonin is a hormone that our brains produce at night to tell the rest of the body to wind down. When your natural levels of melatonin are low, taking a synthetic version of the hormone (and 99% of melatonin supplements are synthetic) essentially tricks your brain into thinking it's bedtime.

As such, Ferira explains, the most compelling use1 of melatonin supplements is to overcome an anomaly in your body clock (circadian rhythm), like when you're traveling to a new time zone or acclimating to a night shift at work. As far as enhancing sleep quality on a nightly basis, though, she says the research just isn't there.

She also warns that taking a hormone nightly can lead to desensitization and cause you to need higher and higher doses in order to feel any effect. Over time, this may throw off your body's natural production and levels of melatonin, as well as other important hormones.

"I have not seen good data to show that high doses of melatonin will not impact your endogenous, natural production of melatonin," Ferira says on the podcast. In fact, so far preliminary studies are showing just the opposite: A preclinical study in Nature2 recently found that supplemental melatonin may negatively affect thyroid health, while other research has shown it can inhibit the function of hormones like estrogen and male growth hormone3.

And finally, while they may not have a direct impact on melatonin, Ferira is a proponent of nonhormonal sleep aids like the essential macromineral magnesium, amino acid bioactive PharmaGABA®, and jujube fruit (a botanical extract).* These are the three active ingredients you'll find in mindbodygreen's bestselling sleep support+ supplement, which is designed to not only help people fall asleep faster but stay asleep longer and wake up feeling more refreshed.* Each of these ingredients has clinical evidence to show their efficacy, making this one seriously science-backed sleep supplement.*