The Truth About Popular Sleep Supplements, From Magnesium to Melatonin
Amanda K Bailey
It’s midnight, you’ve been in bed for what feels like an eternity, and Mr. Sandman is ghosting you. Again. But before you reach for a sleep aid, know this: Experts say there’s no single magic pill or potion that’s routinely effective when it comes to getting good rest—and that you’re better off teaching your body to fall asleep on its own. (Even though, as you probably know firsthand, that can be really hard.)
In the short term, a sleep aid—whether it’s melatonin, magnesium, weed, or something else—might help you pass out, but consistently using that kind of shortcut can be quite bad for the quality of your sleep (and sometimes for other aspects of your health too). “When you’re using something to get to sleep, you are often creating an association with that thing, whether it’s a substance, or even a certain action or behavior,” Joshua Tal, PhD, a clinical psychologist in New York City who specializes in sleep, tells SELF. Basically, you’re making it even harder to fall asleep without whatever it is you’re leaning on to doze off. Fun!
From there, as Jeremy A. Weingarten, MD, director of the Center for Sleep Disorders at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, tells SELF: Tolerance can also become a part of that equation. “Over time, the sleep aid may be less effective, so you take higher doses, which may result in side effects,” he says. Cool—so now you’re not sleeping well, feeling increasingly dependent on whatever you’re using, and you have additional problems to deal with if the “aid” causes other reactions in your body.
What’s a tired person to even do? For starters: Don’t over-rely on quick fixes that will only make your sleep situation more complicated. Here’s the deal with common sleep aids—and why, a lot of the time, they’re sneakily bullshit.
The substances: alcohol and cannabis
Sipping a glass of wine or popping an edible might seem like an easy road to dreamland…. Until you take a second look at how they actually affect your sleep. We’re sorry to report that while each thing can help you drift off quickly, they ultimately just tire you out even more.
Alcohol
Booze is deceptive when it comes to your precious slumber. Alcohol depresses the central nervous system, meaning, sure, it can make you tired, but even if you’re drinking in moderation, it will screw with your ability to actually rest. “Alcohol causes significantly increased sleep disruption throughout the night,” Dr. Weingarten says. “You’ll have poorer sleep quality with multiple awakenings—whether you are aware of them or not—resulting in a bad night’s sleep.”
This happens partly because sleep happens in distinct cycles. Booze wreaks havoc on two of them, in particular, which messes with the rest of them overall. For starters, drinking throws off slow-wave sleep, also known as deep sleep, which is vital for restoring your body’s functions and helping you wake up feeling refreshed. Alcohol also decreases the rate of REM sleep, which is best known for its association with vivid dreaming and helping us process our feelings, and it’s additionally believed to support memory function. All told, a nightcap is only going to make you feel worse in the morning (and all the more so if you’re also dehydrated and dealing with a gruesome hangover).
Cannabis
A quarter of Americans use the world’s chillest flower to drift off, according to a study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). As plenty of us know, weed can be great for feeling less keyed up, but that’s not the same as real rest. “While some people use cannabis for relaxation, its impact on sleep is complex,” Kannan Ramar, MD, a pulmonary/critical care/sleep medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic and former president of the AASM, tells SELF. The part that gets you high, tetrahydrocannabinol (a.k.a. THC) is the culprit behind its not-great effects on snoozing. “THC may reduce REM sleep,” Dr. Ramar says—and research reflects that too.
How often you get high to fall asleep is also a factor. “There’s some evidence that [cannabis] may increase slow-wave or deep sleep,” Dr. Weingarten says—but only if it’s used occasionally and short-term. “Long-term cannabis use may result in tolerance—decreased effectiveness—and may eventually negatively impact your sleep.” Multiple other studies show that consistently going to bed stony bologney—like on a daily to weekly basis—can disrupt your overall rest, backing up Dr. Tal’s big point from earlier: The only way to get good sleep is to teach your body to do it without hitting a bong (or whatever other thing you’re doing, even if it’s really fun).
The supplements: magnesium and melatonin
Melatonin, a hormone that helps to regulate your circadian rhythms, and magnesium, a mineral naturally found in lots of foods that can help promote relaxation, are both available as OTC supplements, and plenty of people swear by them to help with sleep. So they definitely work…. Right?
Melatonin
People in the US love their melatonin—the AASM estimates that about two-thirds of adults in the US have reached for the sleepytime supplement at some point in their lives. (We are so, so tired.)
Your body creates melatonin to help regulate your sleep-wake cycle, and the supplement versions aim to mimic the natural production of the hormone. “Melatonin does have a very mild sedative effect, which is why people take it to fall asleep. But this effect is quite variable and often wanes over time,” Dr. Weingarten cautions. People like melatonin because it can sometimes be a quick fix when your sleep is thrown off by an unusual interruption to your routine, like jet lag—but you shouldn’t take it every night (especially if you haven’t checked in with a health care provider), and there are a number of reasons for that.
Dr. Weingarten points out that melatonin is not an FDA-approved drug, which makes it a little…unpredictable, in terms of what’s actually in the bottle. “Because melatonin is purchased over the counter, it isn’t regulated as strictly as prescribed medications—therefore, the amount of melatonin in any product can be different from what is stated on the labeling,” he says.
That’s important because you might think you’re taking five milligrams, but that little pill can pack a much wilder wallop. One study found that the real contents of the 25 supplement brands it tested ranged between 74% below the on-label amount to 347% above. That’s not including one that had no melatonin in it, but did contain CBD. That guessing game isn’t great when too much melatonin can lead to fatigue, dizziness, and confusion, among other wack side effects. (And there’s been an enormous recent rise in ER visits among children who accidentally took melatonin. In fact, it’s serious enough that the top trade association in the supplement industry just called on manufacturers to make their products safer in a number of ways, including, you know, labeling them accurately.)
Finally: Despite research indicating that consistently popping melatonin probably won’t be straight-up harmful to you, Dr. Tal says that some people might also experience nightmares if they use it a lot. All told, that’s probably not the relief you’re looking for.
Magnesium
Magnesium is a mineral in the body that we normally get through eating food. It helps regulate stress and generally brings things down a notch, which is why the whole “taking it for sleep in supplement fashion” trend came about. Perhaps you’ve heard of TikTok’s favorite “sleepy girl mocktail,” a combo of tart cherry juice, magnesium powder, and sparkling water? It’s cute in theory, but experts caution against using magnesium regularly for sleep.
“There are many stories on the internet of sleep improving with magnesium. However, the medical literature doesn’t fully corroborate that,” Dr. Weingarten says—research exploring its effectiveness shows mixed results. It’s true that some small studies have shown that magnesium can help with insomnia symptoms in people over the age of 60, but the available evidence doesn’t more widely prove its effectiveness, making it kind of like the time when Regina George started wearing army pants and flip-flops and then everyone else did too: So far, the success rate here is limited.
In general, most largely healthy people won’t face serious health consequences if they take magnesium supplements—though it can absolutely mess with your stomach and set off nausea, cramping, and diarrhea. And for those with chronic conditions affecting the kidneys or people undergoing treatment for cancer or preeclampsia, going overboard with it (as in, using upwards of 350 milligrams a day) can come with a host of serious consequences, including respiratory problems, hypotension (low blood pressure), and even cardiac arrest.
That being said: If you want to knock back a mocktail and feel like you’re living your truth, then do it by all means—especially if you’re swapping something harder for it. Otherwise, just know that it’s probably not going to affect your sleep.
The natural remedies: tart cherry juice and “sleep” tea
Natural sleep remedies have a long, long history in cultures across the world, like valerian root in ancient Greece and lemon balm in the Middle Ages. But “natural” doesn’t always translate to “effective” or “better for you,” even if something’s really old, and that’s also true of some of the homeopathic sleep aids people turn to in the here and now.
Tart cherry juice
Tart cherry juice (which, you might remember, is an ingredient in the sleepy girl mocktail) probably won’t do you any harm unless you’re counting on it to help you drift off, since it doesn’t really work that miraculously. (You should probably also avoid it if you deal with gnarly acid reflux—it’s pretty acidic!) Tart cherries do have some melatonin in them, but as SELF previously reported, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re helping you snooze soundly. Any potential benefits associated with using tart cherry juice for sleep have surfaced from older, small, and/or industry-funded research, which means it isn’t a proven remedy. Though it’s a benign option to try if you’re curious (and the placebo effect can be very real), drinking fruit juice is not a long-term substitute for a solid sleep routine.
“Sleep” tea
“Sleepytime” teas aren’t a magic solution either, according to Dr. Ramar—that’s basically all just marketing (and while some “sleep” teas are simply herbal, others that claim they’ll help you get to bed are actually just hiding magnesium in them). While small studies indicate that herbal teas like chamomile could provide modest (at best!) benefits when it comes to falling asleep and not waking up in the night, there’s not conclusive research there—and chamomile is the main ingredient in the Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea with the bear in pajamas on the box. Iconic though he may be, you’re not going to instantly conk out or have fewer interruptions to your rest upon drinking sleep tea if your other nighttime habits (cough cough, THAT PHONE) are making that hard for you to begin with.
Again, if you like a little bev at night, herbal tea is not going to hurt you—but it’s also not going to conclusively help you saw any logs at bedtime. Just double-check that whatever hot beverage you’re enjoying is, in fact, caffeine-free—herbal teas fit this bill, but sometimes people forget that other kinds, like many green and black teas, are naturally caffeinated and can make you feel buzzy.
The bottom line
A hack. A trick. A quick fix. These things sound so very sexy, but the actual best thing that you can do is to teach your body how to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night. “Good sleep” isn’t coaxed out with a substance or supplement, especially when that leads to habitual use and potential side effects.
It’s much more reliably the result of good “sleep hygiene,” which, according to Dr. Ramar, means developing a consistent, intentional routine that’s conducive to rest and sticking to it. (If you need help with that, or your sleep is so bad that it’s affecting your quality of life in a serious way, talk to a health care provider about what’s going on and what to do about it.) Don’t throw in the towel if it doesn’t work immediately. Building solid habits takes time, but actually feeling awake in the morning is worth the effort.
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Originally Appeared on SELF
