Any parent of a child with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can tell you that their children often don’t sleep very well. A handful of studies have seen a benefit to giving melatonin to children with ADHD to improve their sleep. The safety of melatonin in children has not been established, and neither has a safe dosage. So talk with your pediatrician before giving any children melatonin. In our family, melatonin did lead to improved sleep for a child with ADHD, changing his wake-up time from a bleary-eyed 5:30 am to a more reasonable 7:00 am.
Melatonin and Jet-Lag
World travelers have known about the reported benefits of melatonin for years. Most recommend starting melatonin after arriving in the new country, before you want to go to bed. Some experts used to recommend taking melatonin several days before traveling, but that recommendation has fallen out of favor.
Side-Effects of Melatonin
Side-effects of melatonin include drowsiness, headache, nightmares, morning grogginess, mild depression and low sex drive. In my case, I occasionally wake up with a headache which I attribute to my melatonin use.
Other Health Claims for Melatonin
There are people who claim that melatonin has anti-oxidant activity, shrinks tumors, increases sex drive, stimulates the immune system, and reduces cardiac arrythmias. None of those claims have been proven in large-scale studies. If you take melatonin for anything other than enhancing sleep, you are asking for trouble.
Melatonin appears by most accounts to be a safe and effective sleep aid for many people. The key to using it lies in caution; talk to your doctor before taking it, start with the lowest dose you can, and look out for side-effects that can ruin your good night’s sleep.