Is it safe

Does melatonin help with anxiety?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20265 sources

Before surgery, yes. In a Cochrane review of 12 trials in 774 adults, melatonin taken before an operation eased people’s nerves more than a placebo did, and in two small trials it did about as well as midazolam, a standard sedative. For worry that keeps you up at night, those trials say very little, and the thing to work on is usually the worry.

It’s easy to see why people reach for melatonin when their mind won’t switch off at bedtime. It’s sold next to the sleep aids, it makes you a little drowsy, and drowsy can feel a lot like calm.

What the trials found

The good evidence is all from operating rooms. Researchers gave adults melatonin or a placebo as a premedication, then measured their anxiety 50 to 100 minutes later on a 100-point scale. In the seven trials that could be pooled, melatonin brought it down by about 13 points more than the placebo, and the review rated that evidence high quality. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health calls it strong evidence that melatonin beats a placebo for anxiety before surgery.

After the operation the results were mixed. Four trials found no difference 90 minutes after surgery, and two found less anxiety at 6 hours. Either way, the trials measured nerves in the hours around an operation, which is closer to stage fright than to months of worry.

Worry at night

Nobody in those trials was tested for anxiety that lasts weeks or months, so they can’t tell you whether melatonin helps with it. Melatonin’s main job is telling your body that night has started. If your mind is racing at bedtime, that message doesn’t touch the cause.

We’d start with the worry itself. Slow breathing is the simplest thing to try in bed, and breathwork.guide has the patterns. If anxiety is getting in the way of your days as well as your nights, that’s a reason to talk to your doctor.

If you still want melatonin for sleep, take it at the right hour. A 2024 analysis of 26 trials found doses taken earlier in the evening did better, so when should I take melatonin? has the window, and why isn’t melatonin working for me? goes through the usual reasons it doesn’t.

Two cautions

Medicines for anxiety or depression. Melatonin interacts with some medicines, including fluvoxamine, blood thinners and nifedipine, so ask your prescriber before you start. In a small study of five healthy men, fluvoxamine, an antidepressant, made their melatonin levels about 17 times higher on average.

A drink to wind down. A moderate drink an hour before bed cut young adults’ own melatonin by about a fifth. Both make you drowsy, so skip the tablet on nights you drink.