Melatonin

The Basics of Sleep From A-to-Zzz

We spend around one-third of our lives sleeping. This is not wasted time. On the contrary, our bodies have a long list of tasks that can only be completed while our mind is resting and our body is still. Getting the right amount of sleep can give you a clearer mind, more energy, and even lower your risk of developing common life-threatening illnesses.

What is the Purpose of Sleep?

Sleep is not just a time when we are unconscious to the world. When we sleep, our bodies go through five distinct phases, from the early light sleep to REM. REM is the best-known phase of sleep because it is when we dream, but it is not the only time at night when our brains are active. Different hormonal and cellular events happen during each phase of sleep in a manner tightly controlled by the brain.

Our body repeats the five-phase cycle of sleep roughly every 90 minutes. This is why people often wake up easier and with less fatigue if they sleep in increments of 90 minutes. This correlates with the time when they are transitioning to lighter sleep. During these cycles, our brains clean toxins and regenerate neurons. The brain also releases hormones that tell cells throughout the body to undergo DNA repair and replication, repairing the damage of the waking day. When people miss sleep on a regular basis, their bodies cannot complete these important housekeeping tasks. Over time, the wear-and-tear can lead to increased disease risk.

How Much Sleep Do We Need?

While not getting enough sleep can put you at higher risk of disease, getting too much sleep is not healthy. People who sleep too much have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and other deadly diseases. Most adults need around eight hours of sleep for optimal function. There is some variation, but getting between seven and nine hours is optimal for almost all people. As with food, exercise and other healthy habits, moderation in sleep is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

The Health Benefits of Sleep

What does getting adequate sleep do for your health? To name a few short-term benefits, sleeping the right amount leaves you with a better memory, higher cognitive skills and a lower risk of having accidents at work or in your car. There are long term health benefits to sleep as well. People who do not get enough sleep are at higher risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even cancer. When you get enough sleep, you are increasing your chance of a better quality of life and a longer lifespan at the same time.

A lack of quality sleep is a serious health risk. Unfortunately, it is a very common one. Around one-third of modern people are not getting the right amount. Modern life, with 24/7 light sources and high levels of stress, makes it difficult to settle down. You can have a very real impact on your health simply by deciding to turn off the phone, turn off the light and get the rest you need.

What is sleep? It is a time when your body repairs and rebuilds to prepare you for a healthier, more energetic, and more functional day. Getting the right amount of sleep will leave you more alert, functioning higher and even in better health. There are many healthy, natural ways to increase not just the time that you spend asleep, but the quality of your sleep. Sleep is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and should be a priority for everyone.

Circadian Rhythm Disorders: Health Consequences and Treatments

Feb 25 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

What is life like when you cannot sleep well? People with circadian rhythm disorders know all too well. These types of sleep disorders can affect every aspect of a person’s life and even have a crucial effect on the risk for serious diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

Circadian Rhythm Disorders: More Than Insomnia

While nearly everyone will suffer from insomnia at some point in their life, circadian rhythm disorders are more serious and more difficult to treat. In these disorders, the patient’s body is not releasing hormones for sleep, wakefulness and other daily activities at the right time. The result is that people can feel tired when they are supposed to be working, or they are wide awake when it is time to sleep. This can lead to fatigue, depression and a variety of health effects.

The mechanism of these disorders is generally not well known, but researchers have identified several genes behind circadian rhythm disorders. In a healthy person, the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus processes information such as light levels and temperature. Hormones are released to make the person sleepy, more awake, hungry, or whatever is needed at that time in the day. In a person with these disorders, these hormones are released at the wrong time, in the wrong amounts, or not at all.

Types of Circadian Rhythm Disorders

There are multiple types of circadian rhythm disorders, each requiring different treatments and a unique approach. The two most common, shift work disorder and jet lag, are a result of a person’s lifestyle conflicting with their circadian rhythm. In shift work disorder, people who work nights or other odd hours begin to have trouble falling asleep or staying awake when needed because they do not sleep and wake at “normal” times. In jet lag disorder, a person who travels to a new time zone may have physical effects such as fatigue and memory loss due to the shift in environmental cues such as light.

There are circadian sleep disorders that are not caused by the environment as well. Delayed phase sleep disorder is common in teens and young adults. In this disorder, the timing of the circadian rhythm is shifted so that people cannot go to sleep until very late at night. If they cannot also sleep late, they will suffer the effects of insomnia and fatigue. Advanced phase sleep disorder is just the opposite. In this sleep disorder usually seen in the elderly, people feel sleepy very early in the evening and wake up early in the morning. There are even non-24-hour sleep-wake disorders in which the internal clock is not set to the normal 24 hours.

Treating Circadian Rhythm Disorders

Circadian sleep disorders can make you tired, overemotional and even disrupt your thinking. In addition, they can increase your risk of developing serious diseases as you age. However, there are many approaches to treating these disorders. Many people can get a better night’s sleep by taking a melatonin supplement. Because melatonin is the hormone released to make people sleepy, taking this supplement can help people who have trouble falling asleep when it is time. Bright light therapy during the day also has been found to be helpful. Certain wavelengths of light tell your brain that it is daytime, which encourages making wakefulness hormones.

People who have circadian rhythm disorders were once considered lazy or even mentally ill. However, modern medicine recognizes these disorders as a physical disease with a variety of successful treatments. Getting treatment for a circadian rhythm disorder allows many people to reclaim high energy and good overall health.

Night Shift Work Linked to Increased Risk of Heart Disease

Feb 20 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Night shift work can make you very tired and interfere with your sleep cycles. Alarmingly, a growing body of research suggests that it can also contribute to heart disease.

Anyone who has ever performed night shift work knows that it can have immense effects on your schedule as well as your general feelings of well-being. When you work the night shift, it can be difficult to maintain a schedule, get adequate sleep and avoid feeling fatigued all the time. Sleeping at odd hours, especially during the day, is a challenge for many. The result is fatigue, fuzzy thinking and other complaints. However, the effects of night shift work are not a mere inconvenience. Not only can working nights mess with your sleep and energy, but it can affect your cardiovascular health as well.

How Does Night Shift Work Affect Your Heart?

The Nurses’ Health Study has been following a huge population of nurses(more than 100,000 people) for several decades. One surprising discovery is that people who work the night shift or are on-call at night have an increased risk of mortality by 11 percent. In addition, these workers are between 19 and 23 percent more likely to die of cardiovascular illness. The increased incidence of heart disease and cardiovascular-related death is present even when other variables are the same.

The Physiology of Night Shifts and Heart Disease

Medical researchers have identified a few ways that night shift work can contribute to heart disease. One study found that even a short-term disruption of a person’s natural circadian rhythm can lead to higher blood pressure and increased inflammation, both of which are important risk factors for heart disease.

Another study looked the effect of working irregular hours in health care workers and found that these people have more activity in the sympathetic nervous system. This system is associated with both emotional and physiological stress, the creator of what we call the “fight or flight response.” Health care workers who miss sleep for work have more physiological stress hormones. In addition, they have thickening of the carotid arteries and other signs of developing cardiovascular disease.

Healthcare workers are not the only population where shift work can affect heart health. The CDC and WHO consider shift work a major cause of occupation-related illness due to several studies finding a significant increased risk. Working the night shift is simply not healthy for most people.

New Discoveries, New Approaches

We will always need night shift workers to staff hospitals and in other fields that don’t close down for the night. However, there are ways that knowledge of the link between heart disease and night shift work can be used to improve health. People who work odd hours can be screened earlier and more carefully for cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure to allow early detection and treatment. In addition, melatonin and other supplements may help to prevent cardiovascular disease by helping workers to get adequate rest and maintain a healthy circadian rhythm. Fields where night work is not necessary may consider changing hours so workers can keep a more natural circadian rhythm.

Sleepless nights affect people more than we often realize. New studies are constantly linking surprising diseases with disruptions in the circadian rhythm. Regular sleep of high quality is very important to good health, even if modern life often makes it difficult.

Recent Discoveries Reveal New Connections Between Melatonin and Cancer

Feb 05 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Scientists have long been aware of the link between melatonin and a healthy sleep-wake cycle. New evidence reveals previously unknown connections between melatonin and cancer.

Many people use melatonin as a supplement to get better quality sleep and to treat circadian disorders such as jet lag. Several new studies suggest that melatonin also may have an impact in relation to cancer treatment. Not only does it appear to improve response to chemotherapy, but the presence of melatonin may also promote healthy cell growth.

A Possible Link Between Melatonin and Cancer

A study performed in Iceland looked at levels of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin in the urine of men with and without prostate cancer. 6-sulfatoxymelatonin is a metabolite of melatonin, so its presence in urine is a rough indicator of blood melatonin levels. Men with low levels of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin were more likely to report sleep issues such as problems falling or staying asleep. They also were more likely to develop cancer of the prostate gland. In fact, those with higher-than-normal levels of this melatonin metabolite were 75 percent less likely to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

New Hope for Cancer Treatment?

This study is not the only one pointing to a relationship between low melatonin levels and potential cancer risk. Several other studies have linked higher melatonin levels with lower cancer risk. In addition, melatonin has been found to dramatically improve the effects of chemotherapy.

How can a hormone associated with sleep have such a huge effect when it comes to cancer? Melatonin and cancer appear to be linked, but how? Melatonin is one of the strongest antioxidants produced by the human body. Not only can it promote healthy cell growth, but studies show that patients who take melatonin with their chemotherapy have a higher rate of tumor response and a higher rate of one year survival, even in tumors previously deemed untreatable.

How Melatonin Helps

Scientists have identified a few mechanisms behind melatonin’s effects. First, it appears to reduce the toxicity of chemotherapy as well as its symptoms, which allows patients to complete their treatments at a higher rate. Melatonin’s effects on sleep allow patients to get higher-quality rest, which leaves them physically stronger and healthier. There is also evidence that melatonin also may more directly promote healthy cell growth, but the mechanism of this effect is not currently known. Some researchers believe that melatonin may lower levels of linoleic acid, which increases the growth of some cancers.

Melatonin and Healthy Cell Growth

Doctors and scientists remain unsure about the effects of melatonin in relation to cancer prevention. It is important to talk to your health care provider whenever you add a new supplement or medication to your regimen. However, melatonin has very low toxicity and almost no side effects when taken in a moderate dose, so many health care providers are supportive of its use as a supplement.

While more research will be needed to determine the exact nature of the link between melatonin and cancer, information gathered from studies done to date is very promising. Melatonin appears to be a beneficial adjunct in the treatment of a variety of cancers, helping patients sleep better and feel healthier during therapies. These new discoveries may change the way doctors approach the treatment of cancer while improving survival and quality of life for people who struggle with disease.

Melatonin: The Master Circadian Rhythm Regulator

Feb 03 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Melatonin plays an important role in regulating the circadian rhythm. In addition, this hormone is showing promise as a treatment for a variety of health problems.

Many people have heard of melatonin. It has become a popular supplement in recent years because of its important role in regulating the circadian rhythm. When people suffer from a melatonin deficiency, they may also suffer from insomnia and even more serious disorders such as cancer.

What Is Melatonin?

Melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland of the brain. All mammals make melatonin and use it in similar ways. When our retinas sense low levels of light, they send messages to the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, another brain structure. The hypothalamus then tells the pineal gland to make melatonin, which then acts on almost every cell in your body.

Melatonin is best known for governing our sleep-wake cycles, but it has a variety of other roles. Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant, prevent aging in our cells. It may also play other roles in aging. In addition, melatonin may be important in the regulation of female hormones and a variety of other biochemicals.

The Master Clock of Your Sleep-Wake Cycle

While melatonin plays a variety of roles, it is most important in regulating the circadian rhythm, including sleep-wake cycles. Melatonin is secreted when our brains sense that it is night, and then released continuously as we sleep. Peak levels occur at around 3 or 4 a.m. After this, levels falls sharply and the brain begins to make other hormones that are associated with waking.

Melatonin helps us to fall asleep and stay asleep long enough to get adequate rest. In addition, the presence of melatonin lets your body know that you are asleep so it can perform important repair processes. Because melatonin is an antioxidant, it even participates in important cell repair. These repair processes not only make us feel more rested, but also play an important role in slowing aging and even protecting against cancer.

Melatonin and Illness

Besides regulating the circadian rhythm, melatonin has been found to be helpful in a variety of illnesses. First, it has been used successfully to treat disorders of the circadian rhythm such as jet lag, insomnia and disorders associated with shift work. It has also been found to assist healthy sleeping behavior in mental health and developmental disorders where insomnia is a major feature, such as autism and schizophrenia. It has even shown promise in the treatment of some cancers.

Resetting Your Circadian Rhythm

Because melatonin is the master clock of the circadian rhythm, it is extremely effective in treating problems related to the sleep-wake cycle. People who suffer jet lag after traveling across time zones can use melatonin to naturally fall asleep at an earlier time without the side effects of other sleep medication. Shift workers and people who work odd hours can use melatonin to tell their body that it is time to sleep in the absence of the presence of bright light or other wakefulness cues.

Understanding the human circadian rhythm and the role of melatonin in regulating the circadian rhythm is allowing doctors and scientists to devise new and innovative treatments. New effects of melatonin are being studied, so it is likely that this hormone will become a more important medical treatment in the future.