Does taking melatonin every night reduce your natural production, and is more actually better?

Available adult research does not support the idea that ordinary melatonin use inevitably shuts down the body’s own production. In an open-label study of prolonged-release melatonin, discontinuation after extended treatment was not associated with withdrawal symptoms or suppression of measured endogenous production. That is reassuring for the preparation and population studied. It is not equivalent to proving that very high doses, every supplement formulation or decades of use have identical effects. Returning insomnia can also reflect the original sleep problem rather than hormonal dependency.[1]

More melatonin is not automatically better sleep. Melatonin is a signal to the body clock as well as a sleep-related hormone, so timing and formulation matter. Larger amounts may add next-day sleepiness, dizziness or headache without fixing the cause of insomnia. NCCIH notes that long-term safety remains incompletely understood and that supplements can vary in content. Persistent sleep trouble calls for understanding whether the issue is circadian timing, chronic insomnia, apnea or something else. Increasing a supplement indefinitely is not a substitute for that distinction.[2]