What Supplements Help With Sleep? [Top 10 in 2024]

Today I'm going over the top 11 natural sleep supplements. We're starting now. Here's the list of the supplements to help you. I started by looking at the Google search results. The stuff I use and I mixed it in with what's most popular around the world and I ranked them from least searched to most searched out of my top 11 list. We're starting with number 11, lavender. Lavender can come in a lot of different ways. Lavender oil, which you can diffuse in your bedroom. You can do lavender pillow spray, which basically helps give you a calming effect, helps you sleep. There's lavender tea. So you can use lavender leaves to consume prior to bedtime talking like one to two teaspoons of dried lavender flowers for about five to 10 minutes. There are a lot of studies that show lavender helps with calming properties. It can help improve sleep. And this was shown in the evidence-based complimentary and alternative medicine journal in 2015 found that aromatherapy at nighttime helped people with their sleep. I personally don't use it. I use some of the top ones. Number 10 passion flower. This is searched in America 18,000 times per year. Studies show that it offers sleep benefits. So specifically passion flower showed in a study improved sleep quality and is often used to reduce the time it takes to fall asleep. It can reduce insomnia in the study. It has been used for years as a natural remedy for anxiety as well. In the phytotherapy research journal in 2011, it was suggested that passion flower can be pretty good since it is a natural remedy generally considered safe, but there's no specific dosages. Number nine, 5-HTP or 5-hydroxy tryptophan. Tryptophan is essentially what's found in turkeys. This is searched 30,000 times per year in America. Studies show that it has mood enhancement, sleep improvement, appetite control. It can help with fibromyalgia and headache relief. For mood and sleep, typically you want to take about 50 to 100 milligrams about 30 minutes before bedtime. It's been shown to help with sleeping. You can eat that turkey. It'll help you fall asleep. Although I think for the turkey, it's necessarily been disproven. Turkey's not a supplement, so don't go gorging on turkey late at night. That's actually one of the things that can help you not sleep. 5-HTP is a precursor of serotonin, which plays a role in sleep regulation. The Journal of Psychopharmacology in 2019 showed that 5-HTP supplementation can improve sleep patterns. I personally don't use this a ton. Let me know if you have experiences with this. 8. Glycine 33,000 searches per year in America. Glycine is an amino acid that enhances sleep quality by affecting body temperature regulation. The Sleep and Biology Rhythms Journal in 2007 suggested that glycine supplementation can improve sleep quality. They recommended a dosage of about 3-5 grams per night prior to sleep. Now we're getting to some of the more popular ones. 7. Valerian Root 60,000 searches per year in America. Valerian has a long history of use as a sleep aid. In fact, when I see a lot of these proprietary blends and powders, I see valerian roots in them quite a bit. And some of those are linked below. But in the American Journal of Medicine, they found that valerian root can improve sleep quality and reduce the time it takes to fall asleep. Not the most popular. I personally don't use it a ton, but it is part of a lot of sleep mixtures. 6. Chamomile Most commonly, this is consumed as chamomile tea. This is searched 90,000 times per year. Chamomile tea can help promote relaxation and better sleep. And the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology reported that chamomile extract improved sleep quality in individuals with insomnia. So basically, in their study, people who had insomnia, chamomile definitely helped them fall asleep. 5. L-Theanine This is another one that I see a lot as part of formulations. In fact, some of the melatonin that we'll talk about comes prepackaged with L-Theanine very frequently. This is searched 91,000 times per year in America on Google. It is an amino acid found in tea leaves. And research has indicated that it may help reduce anxiety and promote relaxation. So combined with melatonin, that could be a really beneficial supplement. It's particularly effective with caffeine drinkers as it has been shown to counterbalance and mitigate some of caffeine's stimulating effects. Ashwagandha This is actually the most searched one on Google per year. Almost 700,000 people per year search this. But you know what? I don't really have a ton of experiences of patients using it. And it's because it has other uses as well. Sleep is one of the uses. I'm not putting it number one as the most popular. I don't think it's the most practical. But you tell me. If you're getting great results with it, tell me down in the comments. Ashwagandha is a herb that may help reduce stress and anxiety. The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine showed in 2019 that ashwagandha supplementation reduced stress. So stress went down and helped improve sleep time in adults with insomnia. It helps with stress reduction. It decreases cortisol levels. So your stress hormones go down. This can cause calmness and relaxation. It's been shown to help with sleep, mood, cognitive function, energy and vitality, the hormonal balances we talked about. But here's probably why it's really popular. It's a testosterone booster for men. A lot of people take it for sperm reasons, reproductive health reasons, and testosterone reasons. That doesn't mean as a woman you shouldn't take it. Because for women, it helps manage stress, improve mood, and also help hormonal balances. So it's not just for men or women, but I want to anticipate anytime something has claims to help with your reproductive abilities, there's a lot of men out there ordering large amounts, giving it a try. It's generally considered safe. Since it is a natural supplement, there's no preset dosages that have been studied. But it can cause GI issues, nausea, and diarrhea. So be careful. This is a controversial one for me. Number three, CBD. Gummies and CBD oil. This is essentially your marijuana. This is searched over 300,000 times. When you add up the different search variations, it's searched a lot. That's why I'm including it. CBD is the non-psychoactive compound derived from cannabis. This has gained popularity for its potential to reduce anxiety and improve sleep. I have a lot of patients who swear by this. Here's kind of the bottom line is a lot of people love it. A lot of people swear by it. When I have a chronic pain patient who can barely function, and they say that it helps them, I'm going to believe that it helps them. They have nothing to lose. They pretty much have tried everything. Some people love CBD. But at the same time, I've had other people who did not do well with it. Everybody's a little bit different. I recommend trying some of the other options first. That's why this is not number one or number two on my list. Essentially, with sleep disorders and anxiety-related sleep disturbances, it has been shown to be effective in a ton of studies. Like you will not have a hard time finding some studies. But here's some considerations and tips that I found online and with my patients. Quality and source. So it's hard to study this because the quality can differ. There's people growing these and making these themselves. There's shops on street corners. Nothing's regulated. Nothing's standardized. You never know what you're getting. And that's what makes it really difficult. Dosage. You want to start very light. You can have horrible reactions. I know patients who have personally taken this, even what they thought were low doses with catastrophic results, like it's ruined numerous days in a row for them. I know that's not everybody. Some people say here, hey, there's no way you can do that. But it does. I've had a lot of patients who have had problems generally want to get 30 to 60 minutes prior to bedtime. And the reality is you want to ease into these things. Check with your doctor ahead of time. This is something that's a little bit of a gray zone legally. So a lot of countries watching this, it's completely banned outright. Some states it's allowed and normal. Probably not one that's accepted everywhere around the world. There's a lot of critics about it. There's a lot of big fans. It's definitely a controversial one with polarizing opinions. Number two. This is one of my favorite ones. Magnesium. Especially magnesium glycinate. We talked about glycine. Why not just take magnesium glycinate and get both the magnesium and the glycine. This is searched almost 400,000 times per year in America. This essential mineral that does a million things. It's part of 600 plus enzymes. It's also been shown to help with sleep, relaxation and chronic pain management. I have a video where I go into the exact pathways. I talk about the chemistry. There are whole books written on the subject. The Journal of Research in Medical Sciences found that magnesium supplementation can improve sleep quality. There's a ton of studies. We used to get it through our diet and our water, but that is not the case anymore. Studies show that like 70 plus percent of people are magnesium deficient. How much of an impact does this make? It is virtually impossible to know because there's so many variables in our diet and taking with magnesium, but the reality is magnesium is really cheap. It's very low risk to supplement. I think there's only four major diseases such as kidney failure or a bowel obstruction or myasthenia gravis that would prevent the need to take magnesium. Almost every single person in the world can take this. I have a great video that exposes a lot of the scams, a lot of the big mistakes on magnesium. I think for me personally, magnesium is probably one of the critical things that you should be taking every single day, not just for sleep, for heart and cardiovascular issues, for diabetes. It's proven for a lot of things. Check out that video down below. Number one, the number one natural sleep aid. This one is found in natural substances like eggs, like pistachios. It's melatonin. Melatonin is something that I love. This is my number one go-to. I recommend this to a lot of people that have a hard time sleeping and virtually everyone gives me very positive feedback. I've had patients use it for almost every type of sleep problems. I would say 90 plus percent of the time patients have a lot of success. It's fairly safe. What's melatonin? Melatonin is a hormone that regulates the sleep wake cycle. So at nighttime, melatonin goes high. During the day when there's sunlight, it goes low. So sunlight makes it drop in our body. So making sure to get sunlight during the day, if you want to go naturally, get sunlight. If you're in a building all day, it's not going to drop as much and it's not going to bounce back up as high at night. There's a lot of things in today's modern society that inhibit melatonin and those things specifically are blue light. When we watch TV and we use phones, this isn't like a hundred years ago. Our melatonin levels are low. So supplementing them will raise them and make you sleepy. The beauty is in case you take way too much, the half-life is very low. The half-life of melatonin is like 30 to 50 minutes. I've even had people tell me they've taken like massive amounts, probably like 20 times what's recommended, 30 times what's recommended, even more, and they've had no problems. They just got really sleepy and fell asleep. But there are side effects. You can get some nausea, some dizziness. You can get a lot of different stuff, but generally it's been found that melatonin is very safe. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Sleep and Research found that melatonin reduced the amount of time it took to fall asleep. It increased the duration of deep sleep. So not only do you fall asleep faster, it's more efficient sleep. They found that it's relatively pretty safe, but every article always ends with more research is needed. How much melatonin should you take? The official recommendations are, if you're having a hard time sleeping, 0.5 milligrams to 3 milligrams is often the average recommended amount, especially if you're flying, if you have jet lag, if you have a hard time sleeping. A lot of chronic pain patients I know take in the 5 to 10 milligram range about half an hour before going to sleep. Obviously if it's chewable tab, it gets to your system quicker. Not everybody's the same. Some people could be more sensitive. Always officially consult with a doctor if you have a problem or it messes up your heart rate or anything. Generally, half-life is about 20 to 50 minutes officially, then it leaves your body fairly quickly. How much is too much? You know what? I've seen studies where patients with dementia take like 60 milligrams or more for years without any real side effects, and this is different than like, say, a man taking steroids. It doesn't stop your body from producing it. They've done studies where people take large amounts for a long period of time, and the day you stop, it kind of goes back to normal. Always check with your doctor, keep up on the studies in case something new. Don't go crazy with megadoses. That's not beneficial in any way. It's just going to give you side effects like dizziness, headache, nausea, daytime drowsiness if you take it too early. Melatonin can give you vivid dreams. It can give some people nightmares. When I take it, I personally have nice dreams. I like to think nice thoughts. I don't watch any horror movies before I go to bed. I follow the tips in my other video, my top 10 tips how to fall asleep without taking anything at all. So I highly recommend you watch that video before you take anything at all. It's hard to study any medications, and everybody's different. It's hard to know for sure. While it's safe for me, and most of the patients that have taken it and discussed it with me, you could be the unicorn. You could be different. You know, take it 30 minutes before bed. Don't go crazy. And can you give it to kids? Generally, kids, it's okay, but very, very low dosages. Don't make it a regular thing. Don't make your kids rely on it. And really, I have a lot of great videos, best sleep positions, best sleep tricks. And if you want to fall asleep without taking drugs, I have a one-minute tip that you need to watch. Check that video down below.