Sleep-Aid or Sleep-Hinder? The Effects of Melatonin on College Students

By Sydney Scott

Plagued by too many thoughts, fears, and anxieties at night, Chapman junior Maggie Vetter more often than not struggles to find sleep.

Her solution:

Melatonin.

“I use it every night unless I feel like I don’t need it,” the screenwriting major said. “But then I feel terrible.”

Many Chapman students often use melatonin during their college years to help them sleep, especially when the stresses of class and life keep them from their eight hours. However, some students, as well as neuropsychologist Lane Scott, fear it is doing more harm than good.

Melatonin is a hormone that our brains produce in response to darkness that makes people sleepy. In recent years, it has also been synthetically made in the form of an over-the-counter dietary supplement in order to help aid those with sleeping problems.

Melatonin supplements can be found in various stores including Target, CVS, Amazon, and are even sold in Chapman’s University Bookstore in the Bhathal Student Services Center. Depending on the container size, these supplements can cost five to thirty dollars.

The use of melatonin has risen in adults over the past two decades from 0.4% to 2.1%. In fact, in a poll taken on Instagram out of 96 Chapman students 71.8% of them have taken melatonin at least once as a sleep aid.

But is this a good thing? For Dr. Scott, who worked at a sleep clinic for several years at Providence hospital in Seattle where he was the Medical Director of Rehabilitation Psychology, it might not be.

“I have a lot of concern about us artificially taking substances that our body already creates,” said Dr. Scott. “There’s not enough research on it.”

“I don’t hate it,” said the integrated educational studies major. “But it sucks when you form a dependency on melatonin to go to sleep. I also get weird dreams when I take melatonin which I’m not a fan of.”

Although junior Kaitlyn Vetica recognizes its usefulness.

“I like it because it works, but it’s not something that I rely on,” said the computer science major. “I think in a pinch if you are having trouble sleeping and have to get up early, it is useful.”

For senior English major Jamilyn Moreau, melatonin supplements are a vital factor for her to get any sleep at all.

“I’m prescribed insomnia medication,” she said. “I also take my melatonin alongside my medication to calm me down when I get anxiety.”

Anxiety is a key reason Vetter uses the supplement as well.

“It knocks me out and makes it so my thoughts don’t spiral,” she said.

However, Dr. Scott stresses that melatonin is NOT meant to be used to treat either issue.

“Melatonin is not supposed to be a treatment for anxiety,” he said. “And I don’t think we’ve ever really proven that people are having insomnia because their body is not producing enough melatonin.”

But why are those unlike Vetter and Moreau who don’t suffer from anxiety and other sleep disorders taking melatonin too? Wathen has a suspicion.

Phones.

While scrolling on TikTok for hours at night, Wathen exposes her eyes to the bright light of a cell phone and often feels her brain waking up even though she was extremely tired when she laid down for bed.

“Your average person, me included, is going to go on their phone and scroll before they go to bed,” she said.

The blue light emitted from electronic devices reduces the production of melatonin at night, according to the SCL health website.

“It’s probably increased with college students more since we’re always on our phones and laptops; on them are our social lives and our education,” said Wathen.

Moreau has also noticed similar effects on her sleep from using her phone at night.

“The thing is, I know better, and yet I’ll still do it sometimes, which I always regret because it triggers my insomnia,” she said.

But Dr. Scott claims there are better ways to treat insomnia and other sleep disorders.

“There are a lot of things that are relevant to sleep, but as Americans, we don’t really think about that stuff,” he said. “We just want a quick fix.”

Some alternative methods include noise machines, sleep soundtracks, meditation, and 8D music.

“It’s soothing and isn’t in the form of a drug, so I think it might be more appealing than melatonin is,” Vetica said.

However, if the lack of sleep is persistent, Dr. Scott recommends finding a sleep clinic to establish the exact problem.

“We need to normalize it,” Dr. Scott said. “Everybody has sleeping problems, but my advice to anyone who feels their sleep patterns are beyond normal is to treat the problem directly instead of relying on lightly tested supplements.”

While Vetter recognizes the risks, she still feels comfortable using it when necessary.

She said:

“I don’t want to be reliant on it, but I don’t think it’s casues any significant problems for me yet.”