So if you’re reading this - you’re thinking about (or are taking melatonin). We’re going to be honest - for reasons we get into in this post - we don’t recommend melatonin as a sleep supplement in any more, but if you’re thinking about taking it, here’s what you need to know.
What Is Melatonin?
Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone in the body that helps signal to your body that it’s time to wind down. It’s a part of your circadian rhthynm and these signals help you have a restful evening.
Melatonin is often taken as a supplement in dosages from 1mg-5mg - although 5mg is very common.
This is roughly (at least) 10x what your body would produce on a highly basis and many people use melatonin as a “cheat code” to knock them out for the night.
That’s not always a good idea (for reasons we’ll get into).
The Half Life of Melatonin
The half life of a medication is the length of time for half the drug to be cleared out of your system. The medication dose continues to reduce by half each of those subsequent time periods or half life.
Melatonin has a half life of approximate 20-45 minutes.
If you take a melatonin supplement - it may take your body 4-5 half lives to completely clear the melatonin from that.
So how long does melatonin last?
Melatonin can last anywhere from 90 minutes (on the shorter end of things) to 4 hours on the longer side of things.
There are some specially formulated slow release melatonin supplements designed to last longer than instant release ones, but all of these supplements are massive in comparison to the actual
Why We Don’t Recommend Melatonin Supplements
Unlike other sleep supplements, melatonin is not an element, amino acid or a plant derivative. It’s a hormone.
It interacts directly with your pitutary gland and the broad majority of melatonin is dosed in dosages that are 10-100x the amount of melatonin your body actually produces.
If you did this with estrogen or testosterone (steroids) people would immediately question this and do more research, but for some reason many people will just pop melatonin without thinking.
We think there are much better alternatives for sleep including cold therapy, magnesium, lemon balm, gaba, l-theanine and a few others.
Resources & Citations
If you’d like to check our research, here are some of the best resources on internet when it comes to melatonin.
→ NCCIH
For When Sleep Seems IMPOSSIBLE
If you’re particularly bad at sleeping, you might want to check out the melatonin-free formulation: Impossible Sleep.
Unlike a lot of supplements on the market - the the labels are 100% transparent and the only ingredients uses are ones that your body craves and needs on a daily basis to perform at it’s best.
→ Magnesium is found to help promote deep sleep and promotes muscle recovery in athletes.
→ L-theanine in doses 100-200mg promotes a deep calming effect that will lull you to sleep.
We’ve perfected these in our Impossible Sleep formulation (did we mention it tastes amazing). Give it a try here and let us know what you think.