Melatonin, the sleep hormone

Melatonin is our so called 'sleep' hormone, made by your body's pineal gland, (although much of it are produced in the gut) a pea-sized gland located just above the middle of your brain. The production and release of melatonin from the pineal gland occurs with the circadian rhythm (your internal clock) with peak levels occurring at night. During the day the pineal is inactive, but in response to darkness, the pineal is turned on and begins to produce melatonin, which is released into the bloodstream. As a result, melatonin levels in the blood rise sharply and you begin to feel less alert, more sleepy and it's easier to fall asleep. This is the circadian rhythm and melatonin production - which works together - ways of signaling to your body that it's time to sleep. 

The pattern of waking during the day when it's light and sleeping at night when it's dark is a natural part of human life. Melatonin levels usually start to go up in the evening once the sun sets, and drop in the morning when the sun goes up. However, most of us are quite separated from nature, and not so in tune with it's rhythms as we once were. The sun is no longer our only light source, and total darkness after sunset, like it's supposed to, is a rarity. Today we are exposed to artificial lightning like indoor and outdoor lightning as well as many different types of screens, which messes with the natural flow of night and day. This affects our hormone levels, sleep patterns and overall health. So how can we support ourselves and our sleep cycles in the world of today?

How to support a healthy melatonin production and promote good sleep

1. Sleep in total darkness: Darkness is what stimulates our melatonin production, which is why it's important to sleep in a dark room. The darker it is, the more melatonin you produce, as light suppresses melatonin production, which is one of the ways that your body knows when it's time to wake up. I love sleeping with a sleeping mask, to make sure it's as dark as possible, which can be hard living in an environment where there is always light somewhere. We weren't made to sleep with masks, but we weren't made to be living in cities with light and screen exposure 24/7 either, so it's about adapting to whats best in the situation we're in.

2. Go outside and get sun exposure during the day: Not only does darkness work as an important regulator of melatonin production, daylight exposure is also important as human sleep is regulated to exposure to both light and darkness. This means that the amount of sunlight you get each day, affects your melatonin production during the night. So get outside, especially in the morning, as the morning light helps stimulate to better melatonin production at night, as well as regulate your circadian rhythm, which again affects your production of melatonin. 

3. Remove harsh lightning including screens at least an hour before bedtime: Night-time is detected by reduced light entering the eyes which happens around sunset when it's naturally getting darker. However, night-time melatonin secretion is suppressed even by a relatively dim light when pupils are dilated. This means that the use of devices such as laptops and smartphones before bedtime can have a negative impact on melatonin secretion, circadian rhythms and sleep, as the artificial light tricks your body into thinking that there isn't time to sleep after and you'll experience that your body starts to wake, which makes you less ready for sleep. We are made to sleep out in nature, where it's no fake lights available after the sun goes down. While the sun and its light was in charge of our light exposure in earlier times, we can now be stimulated by light all day and night if we want to. This reduces our melatonin production, which again weakens our sleep quality.