Dr. Matthew B. (Matt) (likely the presenter) - Unknown

It's quieting down our brain, telling us it's time to get sleepy, right?

It's making us tired.

Well, it turns out, after more studies started to investigate this, that we have melatonin receptors on our pancreas, on our pancreatic beta islet cells.

And the melatonin receptors, the 1B receptors, are sensitive to melatonin.

People with that gene variation had a hypersensitive receptor where little bits of melatonin were enough to really kind of activate it.

And so it turns out melatonin is also quieting down our pancreas at night and telling our pancreas, we don't have to produce so much insulin.

It's nighttime.

We're not going to be eating.

And so there's a systemic effect of melatonin, not only on our brain, but also on our other organs that are important for metabolism.

And I think this is...

a really good reason to think about when you're going to have your last meal and why it is detrimental to engage in late night eating.

So our bodies naturally produce melatonin about three or so hours before our natural bedtime.

So it's a good rule of thumb to make sure that you have finished your last meal, you've finished eating before that time.

So before three hours before your natural bedtime.

It's really just a good rule of thumb to kind of make sure you're done eating then.

When you wake up in the morning, you're also still producing some melatonin for about the first hour.

Now, bright light exposure can inhibit that, so it can hasten the clearance of the melatonin.

But also, I think it's a good idea to wait about an hour after you first wake up before you start taking in your meal.

So bright light exposure we'll talk about.

Also, it's very important for regulating our circadian rhythm, and that's important for sleep.