Doctors do not recommend that minors take melatonin to help sleep, the consequences are serious: it affects normal physical development
According to the data of “China Sleep Research Report (2022)”, people in our country do not sleep enough,The average sleep time per day is 7.06 hours, and the proportion of respondents who sleep for more than 8 hours is only 7.97%.
Over 300 million people in China suffer from sleep disorders, of which more than 3/4 fall asleep after 23:00 pm, and nearly 1/3 of them fall asleep after 1:00 am. Moreover, patients with sleep disorders in my country are showing a younger trend, and the incidence of sleep disorders among adolescents has reached 26%.
For this reason, some people self-medicate melatonin and similar medications to help improve sleep. But in this regard, doctors do not recommend that minors take melatonin to help sleep.
Melatonin is a hormone drug used to treat insomnia and improve sleep. If minors take it for a long time, it is easy to inhibit the secretion of the pituitary gland and cause drug dependence.Melatonin may inhibit the secretion of gonadotropin in juvenile patients, thereby affecting the normal physical development of juveniles.Doctors do not recommend that minors take melatonin to help sleep.
In addition, due to the close relationship between sunlight and melatonin, it is best for insomniacs to maintain outdoor physical exercise for about 10 minutes every day, because melatonin only needs to regulate sleep. Stimulates the release of melatonin.
Therefore, maintaining about 30 minutes of physical exercise every day can not only relax the body and mind, but also better regulate the suppression and release of melatonin and get a good sleep.
In addition, Lu Lin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Peking University Sixth Hospital, introduced that in recent years, patients with sleep disorders have shown a younger trend, and good sleep is crucial for the growth and development, physical recovery and normal functioning of the brain of adolescents. Helps improve memory.
It is recommended that high school students get enough sleep for 8 hours a day, junior high school students get enough sleep for 9 hours a day, and elementary school students get enough sleep for 10 hours a day. If a teenager has sleep problems, be sure to see a sleep doctor for evaluation and monitoring.
