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Sometimes doctors prescribe sleep medicine. It can make you fall asleep faster, wake up less at night, and increase your overall sleep time. It’s a good idea to use this type of medicine at the lowest possible dose and with other non-medicine sleep strategies.
Sleeping pills may help at first, but over time they might cause poor quality sleep. Most sleeping pills increase light sleep and decrease deep sleep. Because of this, you might sleep longer, but you might also feel tired or unrefreshed the next day.
Sleeping pills are usually recommended for 7 days or less. In some cases, your doctor might want you to take them longer. Be aware of the possible side effects like dizziness, and be careful when using sleeping pills.
A low dose of antidepressant medicines (like amitriptyline or nortriptyline) is sometimes prescribed for people who have migraines and sleep problems. It’s taken at night and can help improve both sleep and headaches.
Some over-the-counter sleep products contain other types of medicine, like antihistamines or pain medicine. This medicine might improve sleep a little, but can cause side effects like:
Over-the-counter sleep products can cause tolerance and dependency, and long-term use can result in more harm than good. Talk to your healthcare provider if you are currently using these for sleep.
One of the most common sleep supplements is melatonin. It is not regulated by Health Canada or the United States Food and Drug Administration. In other countries it is available by prescription only. Headache has been reported as one of melatonin’s possible side effects.
Not much is known about the long-term effects of melatonin. The website of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) states that melatonin may help with jet lag, shiftwork, delayed sleep-wake phase, and other circadian rhythm disorders, under the supervision of a sleep doctor. However, it says that “there is little to no evidence” that melatonin works for insomnia. The AASM recommends that people with insomnia talk with a sleep doctor to explore all available treatment options.
Some headache studies have found that people with migraines have low melatonin levels. In a recent study, people with migraines were given melatonin to see what might happen to their headaches. The study found that taking melatonin didn't change the number of headache attacks.
Magnesium has shown evidence as a migraine preventive and is widely used in patients with episodic migraines. Some people have also suggested that magnesium can help with sleep, however, the literature is inconclusive and more studies are required. For more information, speak with your healthcare provider.
These types of medicine might cause insomnia:
Some studies have found a relationship between a person’s diet and their sleep quality, but the food-sleep relationship is complex and can be different for different people. There is some evidence, for example, that having low vitamin D levels puts a person at higher risk for sleep disorders.
Some studies have shown that eating high glycemic index foods is a risk factor for insomnia. The glycemic index (GI) is a system that measures how fast and how much sugar enters the bloodstream after food is eaten. High GI foods release sugar quickly and low GI foods release it slowly.
High GI foods include:
Tryptophan is a substance in the body that is needed to make serotonin and melatonin. Tryptophan is also in some foods.
Some researchers have suggested that eating tryptophan-rich foods might help improve sleep. Some tryptophan-rich foods are:
Talk with your doctor or pharmacist if you are thinking about taking tryptophan supplements. There are many possible side effects and drug interactions.
Ghrelin and leptin are 2 hormones in the body that help control body weight and appetite.
When people get enough sleep, these hormones work well together. But poor sleep can cause ghrelin to increase, which increases your appetite even more than normal. Poor sleep also decreases leptin, which makes your body think it's not full and so you'll likely eat more. Damage to the balance of ghrelin and leptin can also affect insulin, which is a hormone that controls blood sugar.
Research has found a few connections between ghrelin, leptin, weight, and sleep:
