When we hear about melatonin, most of us think of it helping us to sleep better. That’s true, but did you know that melatonin is also a very powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant? It helps your cells not to rust out so quickly.
Dr. Martin teaches about melatonin in today’s episode. We all have a small pea-sized gland at the base of our brains. This gland, the pineal gland, has been referred to as our ‘third eye.’ When light enters our eyes, the pineal gland is what makes melatonin. Melatonin is also made in complete darkness.
Listen to today’s episode to learn all about melatonin, and how it has a shelf life for some people.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: Oh good morning, everyone. Hope you're having a great start to your day, and good morning. Okay, bless all those veterans. Yes, for sure. Bless all those veterans on Remembrance Day. Okay, now, I'm going to ask you a little question. One way to learn things is to ask questions, make you think. What little organ, it's actually a gland, what little gland is called the third eye in your body? It's a little gland. Okay, anybody? And I know you guys are still saying hello and we appreciate it. Anybody know what that little gland is called? You got it, there it is. Debbie, good for you, and Marie, you got it. And Wendy, you got it. It's called the pineal gland. Now the pineal gland, it is a pea size little gland at the base of the brain, almost dead center. As it comes down to the spinal cord, you have a little gland there called the pineal gland. It's called the third eye.
Why is that? Because its primary purpose is to secrete a hormone called melatonin. And then the last little bit, we've been talking about the significance and some of the statistics on insomnia. It's devastating, really, when you think of it. The amount of people projected somewhere near 70% of the population have trouble sleeping. One of the big factors is the pineal gland. It's the lack of secretion of melatonin. Now, melatonin is what your pineal gland produces and it does it two ways. One, through your eyeball to the pineal gland when the sun is out, okay? Eyeball, back through the pineal gland, your third eye, and you make melatonin. The second way is when it's pitch black, your body produces, through the eye again, back to the third eye and produces melatonin.
Now, melatonin does more than probably most people think, because they think of it as sleep and absolutely, it is what hormone your body uses to put you into a nice, deep sleep, a recuperative sleep, a reparative sleep. Melatonin, your body makes it under the right conditions. Now, I'm just going to say this off the top, and I've said it to you many a time. I'm not against melatonin as a supplement. I'm not, okay? Some people find it effective. In my experience, it has a shelf life, meaning that it works and then it doesn't for a lot, a lot, a lot of people. I'm talking about the supplement of melatonin, okay? So again, if it works, go for it. Can you overdose on melatonin? Sometimes it can make you sleepy during the day. For some people, it's not well tolerated in a supplement. But most people do well with it.
But it has a shelf life. It doesn't continue to do its work because your body actually makes it and wants you to get it yourself, out of nature. Now, there's other things that it does. Here's what melatonin does. Obviously, its primary purpose is to put you to sleep. It's the sleep hormone, melatonin. Number two, here's what we know about melatonin. It's a very powerful anti-inflammatory, okay? It is. I'm going to unpack this even more so that you get this. Three, it is a very powerful antioxidant. It helps your cells not to rust out quickly. They'll rust out, every cell will rust out. I don't look like I was when I graduated in the 1970s, okay? I just don't and neither do you if you're getting older, of course.
Last night, when we were doing our webinar and I'm sitting beside my son, you see yourself of course on the screen, right? And I go, "Man, am I ever getting old". My son is 48 years old. Where did time go? Now, I'm trying to age gracefully, okay? I really am. I'm doing the best I can. But Father Time will eventually wear you out and rust you out. I'm just trying to slow that process down. But you know what I'm saying, guys. Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant. It really is. It rust-proofs your cells. That's what antioxidants do. Okay? And that's what melatonin does. Now, 70% of the population have low levels of melatonin. Now I want you to think along with me here and why we see so much insomnia. So let's talk about that.
We know where melatonin comes from. We know what it does. Why are we so low in our levels of melatonin? Our third eye has been put to sleep and it's not allowing you to sleep. You need your pineal gland to work. One of the big reasons, think of our society, think of how the world has changed. I'm always doing that because in nutrition, the world has changed big time. As a kid gone from 25 pounds, that's what Canadians, Americans were consuming of sugar. And now we're up to 200 pounds. As a matter of fact, there was a little study come out and it just bothered the life out of me. How food companies are targeting toddlers. This was in the British Journal of Medicine. How they're targeting toddlers. Guys, you and I live in a different world. And when you think about it, melatonin is produced by the sun.
When your eyeballs see the sun, you make melatonin. Your body makes it. Think about the last 50 years, we work indoors. A lot of people work in offices where that wasn't the case before. I'm not saying people didn't, of course, but think about that. Think about fact that people are scared skinny of the sun. I don't know if there's anything that drives me crazier than that. The sun is the boogieman. It's going to give you cancer. It's going to make your skin age. You know how many movie stars never go in the sun because they believe that lie? And then, we talked about it last night. Imagine adding chemicals to your skin. You want to put a patch of medication on your body, put sunscreen on your skin and then add heat to it.
Anyway, think of how the world has changed. One, we're staying out of the sun. We work indoors comparatively. One of the things that people today, and it's part of the epidemic, you know me, I was against that because I didn't want people to stay home and now you get outside. But when I was a kid, I didn't know if you had this experience, but we were 11 kids in the family. You got up, if you weren't going to school on holiday or Saturdays, or my mom would kick us in the butt and get outside and don't come back until lunch. We lived in a different world. I went outside and played with my friends all day. The world's changed. We understand that.
And one of the biggest factors in melatonin and the production of it in the third eye at the pineal gland is these false lights indoors, indoor lighting, blue light, our computers, our smartphones, our televisions. They produce an artificial light and it actually hampers your production of melatonin. This is why I talk about, if you're going to wear a mask ask, oh, don't get me into it, put one over your eyes at night. I always wear a mask, by the way. I got my mask on right now. Did you know that? Yeah, it's invisible. You can't see it. That's called vitamin A. How do you get vitamin A? From vitamin S. Steak. Because I eat a lot of steak. I wear an invisible mask and vitamin A, by the way, is only found in the animal kingdom. Carrots don't give you vitamin A, carrots give you beta carotene. I'm not saying it's no good. That's a precursor to vitamin A, but if you want pro retinol A, you have to eat it from eggs, meat, and cheese.
How can that not be good for you? How can that not be good for you? How can saturated fat not be good for you? How can it? Think about it. If you just talked about vitamin A, okay. I promised myself I wouldn't get excited today, but your third eye gets messed up with artificial light. And when kids are on a computer, think about it. When kids are on a computer and it's a blue light, it messes up the pineal gland. The pineal gland wants natural sunlight. It wants natural sunlight, the sun. Imagine your body being that smart. When do you feel good? Let's be honest with each other. Sunny day or a gloomy day? Okay. When do you feel good? The sun. VitDerma gets into your eyeballs and the eyeball sends it to your third eyeball in the back of your brain called the pineal gland. That's how you make melatonin, guys.
And then when you get into a pitch black, no light at all, you make melatonin and melatonin calms you down. It puts you into a sleep. Interesting, isn't it? How your body operates. And here we are today. People with extremely low levels of vitamin D, that is an epidemic beyond epidemics. Extremely low levels of vitamin D because the sun has been vilified. Extremely low levels of melatonin because the sun has been vilified. Then you get an industry that's billions of dollars a year in sleeping pills. And folks, I'm just going to tell you something about sleeping pills. Millions of people take them. The problem with a sleeping pill is you don't sleep. Did you know that? You really don't. You're put to sleep, but you're not sleeping. It's not a recuperable sleep. It is sedation. There's a big difference.
You're going in for an operation, they're going to sedate you. Do you remember? No. You're put to sleep. Is that good for you? Well, I guess so. You're not going to hear if you're getting a knee replacement, you won't hear the saw. But guys, it's never meant as recuperative sleep. It's sedation. Your brain is drugged. That's what sleeping pills do. I always used to tell my patients, please don't get hooked on sleeping pills. “Doc, I can't sleep without a sleeping pill.” You're not sleeping. This is why 50, 60%, it's higher than that actually. They get forms of dementia, sleeping pills. They're sedation pills. They're not sleeping pills. They're not. They've given them the wrong name. They're sedation pills. Big difference guys. Okay? Your body knows how to put you to sleep naturally.
You need the sun. You need the sun, your third eye, your pineal gland, won't produce melatonin without it. Your eyeballs. That's why I tell people, look, don't go look directly in the sun. I'm not saying that, but don't put your sunglasses on. Don't put your sunglasses on for about 20 minutes if you can. 20 minutes, by the way, Tony Jr. and I mentioned this last night, the calculations on D. You know what the world found out not that many years ago? We were wrong. The world found out that the calculations on vitamin D, the math was bad math. They miscalculated how much vitamin D you need and the world has suffered much more than you think because of that. You never hear it. But even during this virus, I've talked to you about VitDerma and the importance of it. You go out in the sun for 20 minutes and let your skin be exposed. Especially your arms and legs. You get 10,000 international units in 20 minutes and you never overdose.
Now look, I don't want you to burn in the sun. Okay? So please don't misquote me. I never ask people to burn in the sun. Somebody asked me yesterday about kids. What do you do? Well, don't put sunscreen on them, in my opinion. I don't like that stuff. It's chemicals. Don't ever put a chemical on your skin and then add heat. Don't add the Bunsen burner, which is the sun. The sun is great, but don't mix with chemicals. But you need that natural sunlight for production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, to get powerful antioxidant from melatonin. To get powerful anti-inflammatory from melatonin. Now, you know this about vitamin D. Vitamin D does a lot of things, doesn't it? What am I telling you all the time? Your body is a human solar panel. You know how they're talking about solar power now? Green energy? Well, your body is made up of green energy. When you get out in the sun, the solar panel, even your immune system, but melatonin is tremendous. You need it. But it's a byproduct of sunlight. It's a byproduct at night of complete darkness. You need both. That is so important for you.
I'll tell you a couple of things that affect the pineal gland's production of melatonin. Magnesium, the relaxing mineral. If you're low in magnesium, you won't make as much melatonin. That's why a lot of people, they take magnesium at night and they sleep better. Magnesium does a lot of things, but one of the things that does is help in the production of melatonin. And if you're stressed and you got high cortisol, that'll keep you awake because guess what high cortisol does? You see the circadian rhythm of your body, okay? And it just shows you how fearfully and wonderfully you're made, okay? Guess when you make the most cortisol. In the morning, it's waking you up. You get high cortisol in the morning, higher cortisol in the morning. And as the day progresses, your body makes cortisol. Cortisol per se isn't bad for you. The only time it's bad for you is if you are constantly the drip, drip, drip of cortisol made in your adrenal glands. If you're stressed out, cortisol will keep your melatonin low.
And this is why we're so big on talking about cortisol all the time. That stress hormone. You're not meant to have stress 24 and seven. It'll wake you up. It disrupts your melatonin. You need sunlight. You need darkness at night. You need to get your stress hormone down, cortisol and fourthly, magnesium. Those are the four things. And obviously you want to, as much as you can, try to turn off that blue light as you approach sleep time. It's hard. We're so used to these devices, right? It's hard. I didn't say it was easy. We live in a world, constantly information. My job is, I'm scouring studies all the time. I try to read everything I can to keep up to date on what's going on in the health world. It's my job. Can't produce these Facebooks or podcasts without that. I have to do my work. I'm on my smartphone quite a bit. I'm on my iPad quite a bit. And I understand that. That's why I get in the sun whenever I can.
So those are the things folks. Interesting, but that little wee third eye does that little pineal gland that you couldn't see it if your life depended on it. If we didn't have brain charts, you wouldn't even know where the pineal gland is. That little third eye. Isn't that incredible, guys? You need the sun. You need darkness. You need the sun. You need darkness VitDerma, isn't that incredible? Hormone vitamin. It's not just a vitamin. It's a hormone. Isn't it incredible, guys? Crazy. Okay, you know what tomorrow is? Question and Answer again for Question and Answer Friday. Can I ask you a question? Have you got your Christmas gifts ready yet? That Reset book. Thank you for making it number one. We appreciate that, you have no idea. Okay? How much we appreciate it.
But we're doubling down. We think everybody should know what The Reset is and do it. Okay? And someone asked a question last night. It was a very good question. They've already done the 30 day Reset and can they do a week or two of a Reset after that? Absolutely you could. We want to make this lifestyle guys. Our goal is to make a lifestyle, but you need to start with the 30 days because if you're part of the 88% that have insulin resistance, 88% of the population, 90% population have insulin resistance today. And you got to fix that and you fix it with a 30 day program. Anyway, we love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!