@ Taiyuan people eat melatonin to help improve insomnia？ Expert： Long-term overdose or sleep disorder.
"Source of this article: Taiyuan Evening News"
I heard that melatonin is helpful for insomnia, so I bought it and took it for a long time, and it did have a certain effect. I didn’t want to, but after a long time, new troubles appeared … In recent days, many readers reported to the Shanxi Evening News reporter that they had stepped on the "pit" in the process of treating insomnia. Everyone also had a common doubt: Is melatonin helpful for improving sleep? Will there be some adverse reactions after long-term use?
Shanxi Evening News reporter visited and learned that at present, there are indeed many people who take melatonin to relieve sleep quality, and online sales are also very hot. However, experts say that if it is not insomnia caused by insufficient secretion of melatonin, eating it will not be effective in treating insomnia, and long-term overdose may also cause sleep dysfunction and other side effects.
A patient is confused:
Does eating melatonin help to improve sleep?
The 22-year-old Keke usually falls asleep quickly, but he wakes up after a short sleep, and then he can’t sleep over and over in bed. He can’t sleep for a while until four or five in the morning, and he has to get up for work at six o’clock. I haven’t paid too much attention to it once or twice, but I found that it seriously affected my daily life and work status. I often have no spirit during the day and want to sleep from time to time, so I always make mistakes in my work. In order to alleviate this situation, she bought a lot of sleep aromatherapy, calming essential oil, etc., but the effect was not too obvious. Later, she brushed a friend’s favorite things on Tik Tok, and the symptoms mentioned were very similar to her own, and she said that the sleep quality improved obviously after eating a brand of melatonin, so Keke decided to try it.
"I bought the brand recommended by my friend at the beginning. After eating for a week, my sleep improved, and then I stopped for two or three days. I found that I couldn’t sleep again. I continued to eat and fell asleep again. Later, when I ate this brand, it didn’t work. I bought other brands. After eating it, the result was the same as before, and now it has stopped. After not eating melatonin, I feel more sleepy and people become more anxious. " What puzzles Ke Ke is whether his current symptoms have anything to do with eating melatonin, and is there any other way to relieve his sleep?
Shanxi Evening News reporter found in some shopping platforms that there are various brands of melatonin sold online, and there are more than a dozen brands with higher sales volume, most of which are unisex. The applicable crowd is adults, mainly soft candy, with rich tastes, and the price ranges from tens to hundreds of yuan. The monthly sales of all brands are 3,000-5,000 copies, and the best monthly sales can reach 10,000 copies. In particular, a brand of 148 yuan two bottles, with fresh and sweet, healthy and unburdened, scientifically matched words and nutrient composition table to attract customers. However, according to the comments, although some people fall asleep after eating, they will be tired and listless the next day, easily sleepy, and easy to wake up in the middle of the night and have many dreams.
B experts dispel doubts:
Correct understanding of insomnia can not be judged only by the length of time.
"Drinking coffee during the day and melatonin at night have become a true portrayal of many office workers." Zhang Daming, director of the Mental Health Department of Shanxi Children’s Hospital, said that melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland of the brain, and its main function is to regulate the sleep-wake cycle. At night or when the light is dim, the brain will increase the secretion of melatonin to promote us to sleep. During the day or when the light is strong, the brain will reduce the secretion of melatonin to keep us awake. However, generally speaking, people’s own melatonin is enough. If it is not insomnia caused by insufficient melatonin secretion, eating melatonin will not play a role in treating insomnia. And according to the research at home and abroad, although melatonin can improve the sleep effect to a certain extent, the safety of long-term excessive use needs to be verified. Long-term and excessive use of melatonin will affect the normal secretion of melatonin, which may cause sleep disorder and other side effects. In 2016, the "Clinical Practice Guide: Drug Treatment of Adult Chronic Insomnia" issued by the American Sleep Association clearly gave a suggestion: clinicians should not use melatonin for the treatment of adults with difficulty in falling asleep and maintaining sleep. In China, melatonin is only approved for the production of health food, and it is not included in the production and sales of drug supervision, so it can’t be used as a drug to treat insomnia. Therefore, the use of melatonin should be cautious, and it is advisable to consult a professional doctor first when encountering insomnia problems.
"Insomnia seems to have become a common problem of modern people. About 300 million adults in China have insomnia problems. Epidemiological surveys show that 45.4% of people in China have experienced insomnia in different degrees in the past month, and insomnia has become one of the most common sleep problems." Zhang Daming said that insomnia can lead to poor mental state during the day, headache, dizziness, fatigue and weakness, decreased work and study efficiency, inability to concentrate, and easy to doze off. Long-term insomnia will not only affect normal work and life, but also increase the risk of various health problems.
So, how to judge whether you are an insomniac?
Zhang Daming introduced that insomnia usually refers to a subjective experience that patients are still dissatisfied with sleep time and/or sleep quality and affect social function during the day, although they have suitable sleep opportunities and sleeping environment. Since insomnia is a subjective experience, we can’t judge whether it is insomnia only by the length of sleep. Although some people have a short sleep time, they are satisfied with their overall sleep quality, and there are no daytime dysfunction such as fatigue, depression, irritability and physical discomfort caused by insomnia. Such people can’t be diagnosed as insomnia. The common clinical insomnia groups are students, office workers, the elderly, pregnant and lactating women, perimenopausal and menopausal people, patients with respiratory diseases, patients with comorbid mental disorders and patients with neurodegenerative diseases.
C expert advice:
Try psychological and behavioral methods to treat insomnia.
Most prescription drugs used to treat insomnia have the characteristics of convenient administration and quick response. Therefore, drug therapy is one of the effective methods to treat insomnia and plays an important role in clinical treatment. "But most insomnia is closely related to psychological factors, so non-drug psychological and behavioral therapy is also helpful to improve sleep quality." Zhang Daming said that the non-drug treatment of insomnia mainly refers to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-I), which mainly includes five aspects: sleep hygiene education, stimulation control, sleep restriction, relaxation therapy and cognitive therapy, aiming at changing patients’ wrong ideas and attitudes towards sleep, exerting their self-efficacy and improving insomnia. Due to a variety of complicated reasons, a single treatment method often fails to achieve ideal results. The short-term efficacy of drugs in the treatment of insomnia has been confirmed by clinical trials, but long-term application has potential risks such as adverse drug reactions and addiction. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-I) for insomnia is not only effective in the short term, but also can be found in the follow-up of patients. Therefore, CBT-I combined with drugs can gain more advantages, and CBT-I combined with drugs is also recommended in the treatment of insomnia.
At the end of the interview, Zhang Daming specially combed some commonly used cognitive behavioral therapy skills, hoping to help readers with insomnia.
Stimulation control therapy of CBT-I skill-
According to the classic "stimulus-response" model of conditioned reflex, one stimulus can induce multiple reactions, while in the simple conditioned reflex process, one stimulus only induces one reaction. Insomnia is caused by the fact that sleep-related clues (bed, bedroom, bedtime, etc.) are too frequently matched with reactions other than sleep. Stimulation control therapy reconnects sleep-related clues (bed, bedroom and bedtime, etc.) with drowsiness and sleep response to promote rapid sleep.
Typical instructions for stimulus control therapy:
Avoid going to bed early and wait until you are sleepy before going to bed;
Avoid taking a nap outside the bedroom (such as the sofa), and go to bed to sleep;
Avoid doing other things in the bedroom (such as playing mobile phones), and the bedroom/bed is only used for sleeping;
Get up at a fixed time every day to avoid getting up late;
Avoid taking a nap during the day, don’t sleep during non-sleep hours, stay awake, and try to persist despite difficulties;
If you really can’t sleep after waking up (more than 15 minutes), get up and leave the bedroom until you are sleepy and go to bed again.
Shanxi Evening News reporter Xue Lin correspondent Cui Junqiang intern Xue Siyuan
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