Tips for Sleeping Better | Vitamins & Minerals

Tips for Resetting Your Internal Clock and Sleeping Better

By Dr. Mercola

Good sleep is one of the cornerstones of health, without which optimal health will remain elusive. Impaired sleep can increase your risk of a wide variety of diseases and disorders, including:

• Heart disease
• Stomach ulcers
• Mood disorders like depression
• Cancer

Numerous factors can contribute to poor sleep, including vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The featured article by LiveScience¹ highlights three nutrients tied to three common sleep problems. To this, I would add melatonin, which is both a hormone and an antioxidant:

• Magnesium deficiency can cause insomnia
• Lack of potassium can lead to difficulty staying asleep throughout the night
• Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to excessive daytime sleepiness

The Importance of Melatonin

I personally believe that melatonin is one of the most important nutrients to help you optimize your sleep, as it plays a crucial role in your circadian rhythm or internal clock.
Melatonin is produced by a pea-sized gland in the middle of your brain called the pineal gland. When your circadian rhythms are disrupted, your body produces less melatonin, which reduces your ability to fight cancer.
Melatonin actually helps suppress free radicals that can lead to cancer. (This is why tumors grow faster when you sleep poorly.) It also produces a number of health benefits related to your immune system.
For most people, the pineal gland is totally inactive during the day. But, at night, when you are exposed to darkness, your pineal gland begins producing melatonin to be released into your blood.
Melatonin makes you feel sleepy, and in a normal night's sleep, your melatonin levels stay elevated for about 12 hours (usually between 9 pm and 9 am). Then, as the sun rises and your day begins, your pineal gland reduces your production of melatonin.
The levels in your blood decrease until they're hardly measurable at all. This rise and fall of your melatonin levels are part and parcel of your internal clock that dictates when you’re sleepy and when you feel fully awake.

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Tips for Sleeping Better | Vitamins & Minerals