If you are hesitant to try medication to treat insomnia, there are other avenues for relief.

Two other therapies — light therapy and melatonin — have been used to treat insomnia with varying degrees of success. As of 2005, neither has been found as effective as changing your habits or taking medications.

Light therapy

Some experts recommend exposure to bright light to reset an insomniac’s internal clock. Researchers from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, successfully used bright light therapy to improve the sleep of nine insomniacs prone to waking between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. After two evenings of exposure to bright light, the participants slept more than an hour longer. A comparison group of insomniacs exposed to dim lighting showed no improvement. However, light therapy is not commonly used to treat insomnia at most sleep centers because other treatments such as behavior modification are usually more effective.

Melatonin

In the mid-1980s, researchers began to investigate whether oral doses of melatonin, a hormone secreted by the pineal gland might help reset the biological clocks of travelers, shift workers, and people with insomnia. It seems to be most helpful for people with low levels of naturally occurring melatonin. So far, however, there are insufficient data for the FDA to approve this supplement as a treatment for insomnia.

In one small study, researchers in Israel tested melatonin as a sleep aid in 12 men and women, with an average age 76, who had insomnia. People who took melatonin before going to bed fell asleep faster and slept about 10% longer than those who received a placebo. There were no adverse reactions. Other studies, however, found that melatonin did not have any effect on sleep.

A synthetic form of melatonin is sold in health food stores and pharmacies. In the United States, this product – which is not regulated by the FDA – is considered a nutritional supplement, so there is no guarantee of its purity or efficacy. In Great Britain and Canada, melatonin is now classified as a medicine and is no longer available over the counter. To date, there is no reliable information available about its effects during pregnancy or its interactions with other drugs.

Source: everyday Health