Melatonin

Overview

Melatonin is a hormone your own pineal gland (a small gland deep in your brain) makes at night to help set your internal clock¹. As a supplement, it's the same molecule — chemically an indole-based compound related to the amino acid tryptophan — taken to help you fall asleep and sleep better.

A large analysis pooling 23 randomized controlled trials found that melatonin supplements meaningfully improved sleep quality, as measured by a standard questionnaire called the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, in adults with a range of underlying health conditions². A more recent analysis pooling 26 randomized trials looked specifically at how timing and dose change the effect, finding that both matter for how much melatonin shortens the time it takes to fall asleep and lengthens total sleep time¹. Outside of sleep, researchers are also exploring melatonin's antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in early-stage lab and material-science work — for instance, as a slow-release ingredient in an experimental spinal-disc implant gel — but that line of research is not about taking a melatonin pill and doesn't tell us anything about oral supplement use in people³.

Dosage

The dose-response meta-analysis of 26 randomized trials found that both the dose used and the time of administration before bedtime changed how much melatonin shortened sleep onset latency (time to fall asleep) and increased total sleep time¹. The trials pooled in that analysis did not converge on a single milligram figure or timing window — the key finding is that dose and timing both matter, not a single fixed number. Which doses were actually studied, and how far they sit from what shops sell, is covered in the biohacking section below.

Interactions

The meta-analyses reviewed for this profile focused on sleep and did not examine drug interactions. NCCIH does flag two situations that need medical supervision: people with epilepsy and people taking blood-thinning medication should use melatonin only under a doctor's care. It also notes a possible risk of allergic reaction. Because melatonin is sold as a dietary supplement rather than a prescription drug, its interaction profile is mapped far less thoroughly than that of a licensed medicine — if you take anything regularly, ask your pharmacist first.

Traditional Use

Melatonin has no traditional use, and that is a date rather than a gap: the molecule was first isolated from the pineal gland in 1958. We checked anyway, because "no tradition mentions it" is a claim that ought to be earned rather than assumed. Across the seven traditions this site covers, the classical texts describe neither the substance nor the gland that makes it. The pineal appears nowhere in the Sushruta Samhita, in Culpeper's herbal, in the Suwen, in the Dongui Bogam or in the Yojokun — and the single occurrence in the English Canon of Medicine belongs to the translator's twentieth-century commentary, not to Avicenna. What these traditions do have is a great deal to say about sleep itself: the Dongui Bogam discusses dreams in more than a hundred passages, and the Tibetan canon names an entire remedy list for sleeplessness. They reach for food, oil, massage, timing and the seasons. None of them reaches for a gland.

What biohacking says

Evidence Strength

What biohacking says

This is one of the better-studied natural sleep aids on this site: two separate meta-analyses pooling roughly 23 and 26 randomized controlled trials both support an effect on sleep quality and sleep timing^2,1. That said, both are analyses of existing trials rather than brand-new large studies, and neither reports the kind of detailed side-effect or interaction data a reader would want for everyday decision-making. The one non-sleep study mentioned above — the disc-regeneration gel — is early laboratory work and should be read as background only, not as evidence of what melatonin does in people beyond sleep.