Melatonin (5-methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine) is one kind of hormone that usually generates in human body. The secretion generally occurs at night from a little pea shaped gland at the core of the human brain named as pineal gland that helps our body to get adjusted with the sleep –wake cycle.
Melatonin maintains human body’s circadian rhythm, which is basically body’s internal time keeping mechanism and controls the sleep and wake cycles.
Secretion of Melatonin is stimulated by darkness and the opposite action is done by the light. Though the pineal gland keeps on releasing hormone throughout the life cycle but recent studies proved that the secretion slows down as we age.
Scientists say that it’s the reason behind young people having less difficulty in sleeping while older persons face these problems much more.