From mensjournal.com
Say "good night" to insomnia!
If I have trouble falling asleep, I go the natural route. After all, natural sleep aids typically have fewer side effects than prescription medicines. Maybe these can help you too.
What is the Best Natural Thing to Help You Sleep?
Several natural supplements might make a big impact on your nights.
Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone your brain makes, especially when it's dark outside. It helps your body know when it's time to sleep and wake up by managing your internal clock. This clock, called circadian rhythms, works on a 24-hour cycle.
Studies show using it in supplement form can help you sleep. For example, a review found 12 studies comparing melatonin to a placebo. These studies showed that melatonin can help people fall asleep faster and regulate sleep patterns, especially for those with primary insomnia and delayed sleep phase syndrome.
However, more research is needed to be sure melatonin is effective for all types of sleep problems.
Research suggests that short-term use of melatonin, even in high doses, is generally safe, with only mild effects like dizziness, headache, nausea, and sleepiness reported.
It's also worth noting that some foods have melatonin in them!
Lavender
Lavender is a fragrant herb and is usually used as an oil in a diffuser or diluted for skin use. A review looked at 20 studies on how lavender oil affects adults' sleep. It turns out that 14 of them showed it helps. As a result, it seems that lavender oil can improve sleep quality in adults, even if they don't have insomnia or other sleep problems yet.
During studies, some patients experienced stomach problems like nausea, burping, bad breath, and diarrhoea, but they were able to tolerate them.
Magnesium
Magnesium is a common mineral in the body, found in many foods and sometimes added to others. It helps with over 300 enzyme systems, controlling important processes like making proteins, keeping muscles and nerves working, managing blood sugar, and regulating blood pressure.
Taking 500mg of magnesium has been linked to improvements in various aspects of sleep, like the severity of insomnia, duration, efficiency, and time it takes to fall asleep.
When it comes to side effects, magnesium can cause serious issues like heart problems and breathing difficulties, as well as common symptoms such as flushing, low blood pressure, stomach discomfort, and diarrhoea.
Passionflower
Passionflower is a vine used by some cultures as a sedative. A study looked at how passionflower affects sleep in people with insomnia, involving 110 adults.
They were randomly given either passionflower or a placebo for two weeks. Results showed that those taking passionflower slept longer than those taking the placebo. However, improvements in other aspects of sleep (like sleep efficiency and waking up during the night) were not significantly different from the placebo group.
Passionflower might help improve sleep in people with insomnia, but more research is needed to be sure.
While it's generally safe, some people may feel dizzy or sedated after taking it orally.
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