Melatonin is My Sleep Routine

If melatonin is part of your nightly sleep routine, this is the episode for you. We discuss why it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep as a college student, how melatonin, alcohol and weed impact quality of rest, and find the silver lining with tips to become a better sleeper.

Transcript

Marissa: Welcome to the Silver Linings podcast. I'm Marissa Whitaker. I work with students discussing the relationship between substance use and their well being.

Jen: And I'm Jen Talarico. I'm a senior mental health counselor. We work in Conley counseling and this and we are passionate about understanding the human condition.

Marissa: Sometimes life can be tough. This podcast acknowledges life's complexities by using an optimistic and humorous approach.

Jen: When was the last time you really felt well rested? We know the importance of sleep, but why are some of us so bad at it? Today we are talking about why sleeping can be hard, why melatonin has its drawbacks and end on a silver lining with some tips to help with sleep.

Marissa: Speaking of sleep, let's start with some data. The CDC recommends that college students, or any adult between the ages of 18 and 60 get between seven to 9 hours of sleep a night. A third of us adults report that they usually get less than the recommended amount of sleep, and not getting enough sleep is linked with many chronic diseases and conditions, such as type two diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and depression.

Jen: And the National Institute of Health identifies that good quality sleep can actually heal and repair our heart and our blood vessels. It can help support a healthy balance of our hormones that make us feel hungry or full. It can support healthy growth and development. So the hormone that boosts muscle mass, it can help repair muscle tissues and cells as well. And good quality sleep can also affect your body's ability to fight germs and sickness. So ongoing sleep deficiency can actually change the way your body's natural defense against germs and sickness responds. So, for example, if you're sleep deficient, you might have trouble fighting common infections and colds.

Marissa: So if this all sounds a little bit removed from you yourself, let's talk a little bit about what our campus is experiencing. Our students are sleep deprived. The 2022 Student Health Survey conducted on our campus consistently shows that over half or almost half of our students report being seriously sleep deprived. So this isn't you got like 1 hour less. This is, you wake up feeling unrested multiple nights a week. And a lot of this comes with being a college student with a full class load, your social life, maybe some people have a job. Some of us are just bad sleepers. So, jen, why are some of us bad sleepers?

Jen: Yeah, it's kind of interesting. We've heard this probably our whole lives. Like, thinking back to when we were kids and we had a bedtime. So you would think, we've known this for several years, so why are we so bad at it? I think sometimes the inability to sleep really lies in our environmental factors. So more of a problem with our surroundings. And I'm definitely guilty of this myself. I'm sure you are too. Hypocrisy episode, falling asleep with a tv on or with our phones on, the bright light can definitely signal for our body to be alert, be awake and also thinking of the college experience. Maybe you're sharing a tiny room and space now with someone you don't know all that well, which can be uncomfortable. Or you're sharing a space with someone all of a sudden that is snoring a lot or their rhythm of when they go to bed or when they fall asleep is much different from your own. And also, even if you get along well with your roommate, maybe there's a rager going on next door and making it all that much more difficult to actually fall asleep.

Marissa: And so aside from the environmental factors, I think sometimes looking at ourselves and what are we contributing to this? Because just as you said, I think we all know what we need to do to fall asleep. But I think the problem is that it's just hard. Like, we know what we should do but we're not always doing it. Sometimes our fear of missing out comes into play. And yes, this can be your fear of missing out with things that are going on with your friends, social activities and sometimes new the technology fear of missing out. This happens so much with shows that are streaming now. There are spoilers the next day if you're not catching up with watching the whole entire series in one night. So you stay up to watch these.

Jen: Shows doom scrolling right. I think for that, yes. Where you're all of a sudden you can't go to sleep because of what you're reading and absolutely the anxiety.

Marissa: Yes, I know I'm really in a situation where I'm holding my phone and then the phone falls and hits my face and then it wakes me up. I'm like, just put the phone down. But we're not here for me today. But I think it's really interesting, too. How does this impact our students though, Jen?

Jen: Yeah, I think our students by nature experience really long days with their schedule. So this could be, maybe you're even like starting a class at 08:00 a.m. But you're getting up at seven to finish an assignment. And then throughout the day you have classes, maybe internships, maybe other academic requirements. And then after hours you're now going to clubs or sports or jobs and then trying to come home and find time to eat, to study, to socialize. That could take you, what, till midnight to later, possibly again. And there's that of social jet lag that we can get from all this, too. So even if this isn't a daily thing you experience, which I think is one, again, doing a twelve to 16 hours day every day is a huge thing, obviously. But then even if it's just on the weekends, that social jet lag, like, what about a Monday morning crash, right? We don't just bounce back because we want to. Our body doesn't bounce back like that. So I think, really, everyone listening, thinking about when does your day start? What's it like throughout the day? When does your day end? And then how many hours of sleep? Are you really getting restful sleep off of that?

Marissa: Yeah, I was talking to a student a couple of semesters ago, and they're like, well, I have practice that starts at nine. I'm like, get up, it's 09:00. And they're like, no, at 09:00 p.m. So if your practice is starting late, you're getting out at, what, 1011? And then who goes right from working out to immediately falling asleep that wind down. You have to give yourself time to kind of decompress at the end of the day. So kind of switching gears a little bit to how people fall asleep. Sometimes people use substances to fall asleep, and then sometimes they're using substances after using other substances that prevent sleep. I'm looking at you, caffeine. So, for example, cannabis and alcohol both impact your ability to hit that rem sleep state. Rapid eye movement, which is where dreaming occurs, and also what your body needs to recover and then ultimately rest from your day. So cannabis in particular, I talk to a lot of students when talking about substance use, that they're using cannabis to help fall asleep, and it may help you fall asleep, but the jury and the science is really still lacking in the sleep quality that someone's getting. So falling asleep and staying asleep can be two very different things. Bottom line, we need more research and data because the data is kind of mixed right now as to where cannabis falls with sleep benefits. But as I said before, after using substances that prevent sleep, you can't be having your ice macchiato at like 09:00 and then expect to fall asleep a couple of hours later. That caffeine is going to be in your system. And then using cannabis or something to fall asleep after you've had a coffee, that's not going to be beneficial, especially in the long term.

Jen: What about something like melatonin, Marissa, I'm.

Marissa: So glad you asked.

Jen: Weird you would ask.

Marissa: Oh, my gosh. Almost like we knew that we were going to talk about that. So strange. I happen to have some notes on that. Even melatonin falls into this category, which is really wild, because melatonin is actually a hormone that your brain produces in response to darkness. So this can help with the timing of your circadian rhythm, which is that 24 hours internal clock that we have. And with sleep, this was not designed to be a long term situation. And melatonin is actually regulated as a dietary supplement, which is why you often find this in, like, the vitamin aisle. But because it's a dietary supplement, it's actually regulated far less strict by the FDA than prescription and over the counter drugs. So you might not actually be getting what you think that you're getting. Also, this I thought was kind of interesting. Over the counter melatonin is banned in a lot of places and, like, modern countries, too. So United Kingdom, european Union, Japan, Australia, and most recently, Canada has banned over the counter melatonin. So this is something that you can get in America, but you can't get just anywhere else to kind of answer the question that I think a lot of people have is, does melatonin help with insomnia? And as I said before, melatonin is not designed to be a long term sleep aid. People with insomnia, actually, they have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. If someone's symptoms are lasting a month or longer, that's chronic insomnia. And really, when someone would want to get that assessed professionally. Speaking of professionals, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American College of Physicians really both feel strongly that there's not enough evidence on the effectiveness or the safety of melatonin use for chronic insomnia. So, similar to cannabis and sleep, the jury's really still out with this, but there's nothing really showing that it's extremely beneficial. And then kind of going off of that insomnia piece, as you had touched upon before, being exposed to light at night also blocks melatonin production. So you can't pop a melatonin and then turn forensic files on and think you're going to fall asleep right after that. That light is really negating the function of melatonin.

Jen: So with all of that, I guess that question that goes along with is, so is melatonin safe to use? So it sounds like that short term use of melatonin supplements appears to be safe, per the recommendation of most physicians for most people. But information might be lacking on the long term safety of supplementing with melatonin for what's lacking. So the National Institute of Health also has said recently that there's a small but growing number of people who are taking way more than what should be prescribed. So usually that five milligram dose that's recommended for adults is being heavily used. More than that, we are not mds. So if your physician or someone is recommending you something else, talk with your physician, obviously, but just some of the data that we're finding of what's recommended versus what's really happening. Yeah.

Marissa: And here's where it gets problematic. Five milligrams is the recommended dose for short term use. Half of the pills that are out for melatonin are ten milligram pills. So if somebody is like, I'll just take two tonight because I'm really having a hard time sleeping. If you've now taken 20 milligrams of melatonin, but the standard dose is five, there's really just not good information and really approved dosaging for melatonin. It really is kind of a guessing game, and that doesn't always feel safe. Also, just because something's naturally occurring doesn't mean that that's safe either. Especially when you're taking those higher doses, there's not enough information about the possible side effects to have a clear picture for safety. There was also a research study done where they analyzed a bunch of different over the counter melatonin pills. And the content of melatonin varied from 83% less than advertised to 478% more than what was listed on the label. Yeah, and then the side effects from taking too much melatonin. So if you find that you're taking it and experiencing a headache, dizziness, nausea, drowsiness, cramping in the stomach, irritability and anxiety, those are all side effects of melatonin. And it's interesting, as I say that out loud, sometimes those are side effects of also being sleep deprived. So it's the snake eating its tail. And again, sometimes what you're buying isn't necessarily on the label. And again, your guess is as good as mine. Speaking of safe or things that are not safe, being awake for 17 hours straight, this is according to the CDC, so I'm not just making this up. Being awake for 17 hours is similar to having a bac of zero five. Being awake for 24 hours is similar to having a bac of zero point. The legal limit for intoxication is 0.8. Wow.

Jen: So as we said earlier, you could be easily doing a 16 hours day 17 hours day, 24 hours day. Sometimes if you're studying for midterms or for finals or really thinking, how often is that level happening?

Marissa: Yeah, it's not hard to have a 17 hours day, like, doing it right now. So you're tired and you go out drinking or you're tired and you smoke weed or you're just tired and you're driving. Any of those things combined can really be a recipe for disaster, and that's being awake for.

Jen: So that doesn't necessarily, I think some of what we're talking about are more like stressful things or physically active things. This could be like you're just having a great time with your friends. I mean, we've been there, too. You're staying up late, you're talking, you're having a great time, you're laughing, you're still awake.

Marissa: Right.

Jen: So I think, important to point out, too, that this might not feel off or feel bad or feel stressful, but you're still hitting that.

Marissa: Yeah. Is it true that our bodies can only adapt to a few hours of sleep? Or is that something I'm telling myself?

Jen: No, I think it's absolutely a myth. I think with what you just pointed out about that 17 hours or 24 hours, I think that we tell ourselves, like, okay, I'm going off of 5 hours of sleep. I've just gotten used to it. All right, you're functioning, you're moving. Doesn't mean you're healthy or as healthy as you can be. Right. It doesn't mean that there aren't some negative effects that are coming along with that deprivation. So definitely mythbusters here. I don't think that's true at all.

Marissa: Cool.

Jen: But then thinking with that, how does that lack of sleep impact our day to day? Like Marissa said, thinking 17 to 24 hours, the impact that can have our amygdala in our brain, which typically responds to threats and survival, that's what its job is, becomes slowed down the more that we are with a lack of sleep. So this can also lead to brain fog, trouble focusing, trouble remembering a slow detention span, problems with difficulty, problem solving, having a slower response physically. Also our hormones, we might have a lowered sex drive. So again, thinking of our student population, these are all pretty important things on your day to day, right? So these are things that if you're noticing, they're impacted really thinking about where your sleep is at. And our brain also can't develop new pathways. So our neurons in our nervous system, they're just not being fired. Right. They're not remembering to store new information or they're not passing information along. So not only are you waking up grumpy or struggling, you're really at a significant disadvantage when it comes to studying just skill building, muscle mass building, all of those things. So really all parts of our daily life.

Marissa: Right. So what's the silver lining to all of this? Because we kind of set it up to be pretty bleak so far. You do have more control than you think over your sleeping habits. Sometimes it truly just takes some actual behavior change and doing the hard work. But there's also some basic sleep hygiene.

Jen: Absolutely. I think, and again, have to practice these more myself. But this is something where, like tonight you could do one of these and it truly might make a difference.

Marissa: See what works for you.

Jen: Right. If you add an hour, that's an hour more of your brain being able to process, make those neural pathways. Right. It will make a difference. So first, maybe look at developing a sleep routine. So, like everything else, what works for one person might not work for someone else. But really thinking about these things we're about to talk about and kind of pinpointing specifically for you, what could a new routine look like? First and foremost, maybe turning off the lights, no screens. We just talked a little bit about how that is much easier said than done, but really thinking about at what point can you maybe put your phone on your nightstand, away from you, turn off the tv? Maybe also thinking if this is maybe some harm reduction. If you need to think about. I'm not ready.

Marissa: Need to watch housewives, right?

Jen: Or you need to have your phone out. Maybe blue light glasses or there's dimming features on your cell phone. You can do so at least it's not the brightest light. It does turn it down. The more dim light or no light, the more it will cue your body's natural response of melatonin and other factors to fall asleep. Also maybe taking a hot shower or a bath before bed. Sometimes that just relaxes your muscles. The hot water feels nice. It can really just relax you. Having some hot tea or some decaf tea. I know typically it's not like you're drinking that caramel macchiato or a monster drink, but the amount of caffeine is much more limited, especially if you're doing decaf, reading a book or doing something to wind down your brain that doesn't involve a screen.

Marissa: Read your textbooks.

Jen: Absolutely. I found that sometimes with a book too, I'll be so mad at myself because I'll fall asleep on the same page for like a month. I'm like, I'm not getting anywhere in this book, but it's working to help me sleep.

Marissa: Yes, exactly.

Jen: My intent is to read that book. It's to fall asleep to that book. Also trying to move around during the day. Another easier said thing than done is exercise. It tires you out. But it's true. Being physically active absolutely can tire our body out and make us fall asleep. Avoiding large meals, caffeine and alcohol before bedtime. Sometimes just a large meal. Sometimes we're full and we want to fall asleep. I know. Like, I'm thinking thanksgiving, right? There are times where we maybe do eat large meals and we could just doze right off. We could fall asleep. I think I feel this sometimes after lunch, sometimes even. Yeah.

Marissa: Or like eating in bed. And I know that can be really tough if you're in a residence hall and you don't have multiple rooms to go to. But snacking in bed sometimes can be detrimental.

Jen: Right. It signals to our body, okay, we have to digest now, right. Your body is still actively doing things. So that's why avoiding that as much as possible. Journaling. I think, again, a big part of REM cycle and sleep is to process our thoughts. So before you fall asleep, if maybe you're feeling anxious or just kind of ruminating or continuously going through certain thoughts of what happened during the day, why did I say that? Or what do I want to say to that person? What am I feeling? Journal. A lot of the times, getting it out on paper does feel like it's getting it out of your brain. So it can really leave more of an active space in your mind where it feels quiet and calm and you can go to sleep. Sometimes it's hard to fall asleep to quiet. So having a fan on or a white noise machine, even listening to guided meditations if you're unable to fall asleep to silence. So there are some great meditations that are free on YouTube that walk you through either deep breathing or visualizations. You're on a beach, you're somewhere relaxing. So you can absolutely give those a try, too. If maybe again, screen down, you're not watching the beach, but just listening to some of that can be really soothing. And then along with soothing, practicing grounding exercises. So if you're trouble falling asleep or if you're waking up from a stressful dream, the wonderful thing about grounding exercises are they ground you literally, they bring you back to the present moment. So an easy way to practice that is using your five senses. So I know you might be in the dark, but something you can see, maybe there's a clock. Maybe there's a light somewhere, something you can hear. Maybe it's that fan. Maybe it's your roommate snoring. Maybe it's something down the hall.

Marissa: Taste.

Jen: I know that can be another hard one at night texture. Your pajamas, your blanket. Right. And again, you don't have to have all the skills, all of the five senses to do this, even just one. I think it can bring you back to that present moment. Just letting you know I'm okay. It was just a dream. It reminds our fight or flight in our body to calm down and that we are safe. We've scanned our surroundings, and if you've.

Marissa: Tried these strategies and none of them are helpful, try again.

Jen: It takes practice.

Marissa: Yeah, you got to see what works for you. And just because one night you had some decaf tea doesn't mean it's going to undo the 18 years of poor sleep hygiene that you may have. But if none of these strategies are helpful and you've really given a solid effort, it might be time to seek out some professional help. So we hope that you were able to take some things away from this episode.

Jen: If you fell asleep to this episode, you're welcome. Yes. Take it as a success.

Marissa: I've been told I have a really soothing voice to fall asleep. No, nobody's ever said that to me. It's kind of like Fran Tresher, I guess. Anyway, thank you so much for tuning in, and we will see you all next time.