There’s actually quite a lot of research on the topic of sleep support, so there is a good amount of scientific evidence that supports natural ingredients to aid sleep rather than rushing to habit-forming prescription sleep aids. The catch is reliability: many natural sleep aids do contain the correct ingredients, but many producers in the supplements industry under-dose the ingredients to cut costs, while still claiming that they contain ingredients proven to aid sleep. Fortunately, there are a few that get things right (even if a lot of the more well-known brands don’t). That’s where our list of the best natural sleep aids comes in.

Our Top Natural Sleep Supplements

RestAgain – Best Sleep Supplement Overall

Nuzena Circadian Rhythm – Best Budget Option

Sleep Alpha – Best Outside of the US

Do Natural Sleep Aids Work?

Natural sleep supplements may be effective for most people, particularly the ingredients melatonin, GABA, and magnesium, which are all prescription options in various countries where they are medically acknowledged to treat insomnia. There are multiple other ingredients that are well studied and have shown considerable results, varying from a range of herbal extracts to amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. The vitamins and minerals are relatively self-explanatory and can combat a range of deficiencies that can cause insomnia, whereas there’s good evidence to suggest the most effective herbs are typically ashwagandha and valerian root. The difficulty is that  the active ingredient content is typically quite small. So it’s unlikely that, if you want to use more than one at a time, you’ll be able to get all of the ingredients into just one capsule which is something to note. We always recommend speaking to a medical professional before considering a natural sleep supplement and to never take more that the recommended dose. 

There are also some herbs commonly seen in sleep supplements that aren’t effective, typically lavender, lemon balm, and chamomile. The reasons are twofold: either the ingredients only work when drunk as a tea, in which case it’s usually the aromas that help rather than the supplement, or the doses required are so large that you would need four or more capsules per ingredient. As a result these are left out of the best sleep aids. 

In short: yes, natural sleep aids work, as long as you get the right dose of the right ingredients in the right form. Unfortunately a lot of supplement manufacturers cite studies saying an ingredient works, even if it doesn’t work when taken as a pill or they don’t provide it in the required dose.

NB - Always speak to your doctor before taking any sleep supplements if you have any pre-existing medical conditions or are on any medication.

RestAgain – The Best Sleep Supplement

RestAgain is quite new to the US market, but it’s by far the best over the counter sleep aid we’ve come across. It’s very highly dosed and, unlike most of the other supplements for sleep that we reviewed, focuses on delivering each of its ingredients in their researched doses. This makes it the most comprehensive supplement out there right now, and we’d recommend it for 90 percent of people who have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. Having 11 fully backed ingredients does mean that they can’t fit it all into one capsule, but if any natural sleep aid is going to work for you, we trust it’s going to be this one.

It isn’t the cheapest option, either, but when we compare it to its most well-known competitors it contains 3 to 10 times the active ingredients most of them have.  

RestAgain Ingredients

There’s a lot to unpack in the RestAgain ingredients list. It contains a blend of commonly deficient vitamins and minerals known to aid sleep, as well as several well-studied herbal remedies and high doses of melatonin and GABA, which are the human body’s natural chemicals that tell you it’s time to sleep. Melatonin, for example, has been proven to be effective at helping people fall asleep, working in as little as 30 minutes, and it’s often prescribed by physicians. Dosages typically range from 3mg to 10mg [2] with RestAgain coming in at the high end. The inclusion of melatonin helps promote your natural sleep wake cycle and reduce sleep disorder symptoms.

A single RestAgain dose is three pills, which allows you to select your own dose of the strongest ingredient in the capsules. It also contains vitamins D, B6, and B12, all of which are required for your body to produce its own sleep hormones. More than half of the US population is deficient in at least one of these, which may account for widespread sleep problems [3][4]. RestAgain also contains magnesium and calcium, which have been shown to be effective at helping people sleep through the night. Magnesium is particularly well studied and is even prescribed in some countries [5]. While many competitors do contain magnesium, few actually contain the minimum 200mg required to be effective, whereas RestAgain opts for 225mg.

Moving on to the herbal elements, RestAgain contains 300mg of ashwagandha, an herb that has been shown to not only improve sleep quality [6] but actually lower cortisol (the stress hormone) buildup, reducing stress—a leading cause of insomnia.

RestAgain includes 100mg of 5HTP. Again, this ingredient has been backed for use at doses between 100 and 300mg for improving sleep [7], although it quite often needs to be taken for a few weeks to be effective. Research suggests it does lead to deeper sleep.

GABA is dosed at 300mg, [8] which is considered the ideal dosage. It’s the precursor melatonin, meaning it enables your body’s ability to produce its own melatonin and makes a great addition to any sleep aid. It is also one of the more expensive ingredients, which is why a lot of other supplements under-dose it.

Next is 250mg of L Theanine. This amino acid is included to reduce disturbances during sleep. The research supports both its inclusion and the dosage used by RestAgain at this dose [9]. L Theanine also seems to be good for stress, making it a great addition to a natural sleep aid. It works to reduce the activity of stress-related neural pathways and has been said to increase focus during the day as well as helping you sleep. As a result, you’ll find it in a lot of the best natural sleep aids.

Lastly, we have valerian root at 300mg. Generally speaking, valerian root seems to be effective as a sleep aid when dosed at 300mg [10], but unfortunately it’s regularly dosed far lower than this in a lot of supplements. It mostly helps people fall asleep faster: several studies show that the herb can reduce the amount of time taken to fall asleep [11]. However, this is only the case if it is dosed at 300mg, RestAgain’s dose.

Overall Rating 5/5 

RestAgain is a great product. In fact, the only thing that would make it better would be a slight increase in the amount of calcium included. Perhaps in creating a three-capsule supplement they ran out of space. Even so, it’s miles ahead of the competition on the market right now. Sure, it’s about $10–15 a month more than most of its competitors, but considering you get three times or more the active ingredients for about 50 percent more cost, we think that’s a reasonable price point. If you’re looking for a catchall natural sleep supplement, then RestAgain is likely to be the product you should look at first. And if RestAgain doesn’t work, it’s not likely that any natural sleep aid can do any better to help you get a good night's sleep—you’ll need to look at a prescription drug if you’re still having trouble sleeping, talk to your doctor about what may work best for you.

Check RestAgain Deals

Nuzena Circadian Rhythm – Best Natural Sleep Aids on a Budget

Nuzena offers a pretty good option if you’re looking for something under $30. We typically wouldn’t recommend anything cheaper than this, as those options fall into the trap of under-dosing that we mentioned earlier. Even Nuzena under-doses a couple of ingredients, but it still represents decent value for the price point.

For example, the vitamin/mineral blend does get the B6 right, but the rest are under-dosed. The reason may be that that there are different sources of calcium and magnesium. And Nuzena would need to use the larger sized compounds with lower percentages of calcium or magnesium to avoid causing a laxative effect thus requiring more capsules. As a result it appears they are really just included for the sake of having them on the label, rather than including the minerals in functional amounts. However, we believe the herbal extracts and melatonin content of the Nuzena sleep supplement is pretty good.  

Nuzena Ingredients

Nuzena starts with L Tryptophan. Over the past 20 years, 40 studies have shown it to be effective as a sleep aid [12], which is a good endorsement. Nuzena is slightly on the lower dosage side, but still within the effective range.

The valerian root is also a good inclusion, although it’s slightly lower dosed than in RestAgain. There is also a decent amount of melatonin and 5HTP (although the 5HTP is lower than we’d like). In total there are four ingredients with decent dosages and vitamin B6, which isn’t bad for the price point.

We’d have preferred to see them include one more ingredient at the right dose rather than 12 under-dosed ingredients, though. Particularly, we would wish for GABA or ashwagandha, which are included, but nowhere close to the 200mg and 300mg minimums, respectively, needed to promote sleep. Not every ingredient may work for you, always speak to your doctor to be sure you’re taking what’s best for you. 

Overall Rating 4/5

Nuzena is a good budget option. It gets a few things right, and even if it does get more wrong, for its price point it is currently the best option on the market. We’d recommend that anyone who can afford the difference still opt for RestAgain if they can, but it’s quite likely that Nuzena will help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Check Nuzena Deals

Sleep Alpha – Best Sleep Aid without Melatonin

Some people cannot handle melatonin well, and while it’s uncommon, it can leave people feeling a little bit lethargic the next day. That’s where Sleep Alpha comes in. They’ve got a lot of the other ingredients right, and just skipped the melatonin. Pretty simple, really. A couple of ingredients are slightly lower dosed than we’d like to see, but they’re close to the effective dosages. The customer reviews of Sleep Alpha are also particularly good, which would lead us to believe that being 10 percent under some of the ideal ranges hasn’t done the supplement too much harm. Sleep Alpha isn’t for everyone, but if you’re looking to avoid melatonin, it may be the best option.

Sleep Alpha Deep Sleep Ingredients

Avoiding melatonin supplements does restrict a natural sleep aid, but Sleep Alpha has a good dose of magnesium, zinc, and B6, which is a good start. It follows it up with effective doses of L Tryptophan, 5HTP, and ashwagandha. The dosage of valerian root is a little lower than we'd have liked to see; instead it contains hops and lemon balm, which aren’t effective unless dosed in full grams, meaning the combined 500mg dosed here could have been used to much better effect. Still it should be helpful for sleep disorders and is a decent option for a natural sleep aid. Do not take more than the recommended dose, each product may have different instructions, be sure to read them carefully.   

Overall Rating 4/5

Sleep Alpha is a solid sleep aid if you’re avoiding melatonin. We wouldn’t typically recommend it in other cases, but it is effective in what it sets out to do. There are also some countries in which melatonin is not available over the counter, so it’s also a good option in those circumstances. However, if you’re in the US and melatonin isn’t a problem for you, then Sleep Alpha probably isn’t the best natural sleep aid for you. This is especially true if you want quick results, which is generally the case for people with chronic insomnia. Speak to your doctore to be sure this is right for you. 

Relaxium Sleep - Most Popular Natural Sleep Aid

Relaxium is the most popular sleep aid in the US right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best—in fact, far from it. But it’s certainly not the worst, either. It just loses out when compared with some of the better options. This is especially true when we compare Relaxium Sleep with RestAgain, which contains similar ingredients but much higher doses at the same price point.

Relaxium Ingredients

That said, Relaxium has been out a lot longer, so it’s most likely that they just haven’t updated their formula in a while. The positives include good dosages of L Tryptophan, GABA, and melatonin, but unfortunately it includes some of the ineffective ingredients we spoke about earlier, like chamomile and passionflower, and the result is that ashwagandha and valerian root are under-dosed. This would be fine in a cheaper option like Nuzena, but just isn’t good enough for a premium product. The L Tryptophan should improve sleep quality and the GABA and Melatonin should help you get to sleep faster, but it’s just mediocre as a sleep medicine goes.

Overall Rating 3/5

Relaxium is “fine,” but we wouldn’t generally recommend Relaxium Sleep as a first port of call. It only received a mention on this list because it’s the most well-known sleep supplement in the US right now. It should still help with mild insomnia and restless sleep, but there are better options when you’re searching for natural sleep remedies.

Other Common Ingredients in Natural Sleep Aids

Certain natural sleep aids contain ingredients that just aren’t all that great. Some of them do function as sleep aids in certain conditions, but these simply aren’t applicable to those taken in a supplement form. The most common are chamomile, lemon balm, passionflower, and hops. 

The issues are quite simple, and we’ll take them one by one.

Hops requires 6 or more grams to be effective, while the maximum amount a single supplement capsule can hold is 1 gram. As such, it’s not a good ingredient in combined sleep aids, and the small amounts won’t do anything to improve sleep quality. [13] It seems to largely work by stimulating GABA receptors in the nervous system.

Chamomile suffers from a similar problem, and also the trials that showed it to be effective at improving sleep quality used it in a tea form. Warm drinks in general have been shown to help improve sleep as long as they’re not overly caffeinated, so it’s not proven that capsulated chamomile will have any effect. [14]

There is some evidence to support lemon balm’s use, although it’s shaky at best, with as many studies disproving it as have suggested it could work [15] to help with sleep problems. As far as natural sleep aids go there’s much better on offer. 

Then there is tart cherry juice. This has to be taken in large quantities and doesn’t work to support sleep in pill form, but it has shown some positive results as a dietary supplement for poor sleep. It’s likely that its antioxidant properties are what resulted in improvements to sleep disorders. It has also been suggested that it aids melatonin production. [16] Even so, it’s not a good ingredient despite it being heavily used in some popular OTC sleep aids. 

Last of the usual suspects is passionflower, and that simply seems to be an old wives’ tale with no evidence that it helps you fall asleep faster or that it can improve sleep quality. [17]

What Else Can I Do to Improve Sleep? 

When you’re trying to improve the quality of your sleep, it’s generally a good idea to improve poor sleep hygiene where possible. That includes not drinking too much caffeine, making sure to avoid artificial light late in the evening, establishing a consistent bedtime and bedtime routine, and so on, all of which will cumulatively help to improve sleep quality. Getting exercise and making sure not to drink too much liquid before bed can also help. All of these things can help you get to sleep more easily. There’s a great guide to help you with getting healthy sleep on the National Institutes of Health site. 

*This article is provided by an advertiser. Statements made are not meant to offer medical advice nor to diagnose any condition. Any studies cited here may be preliminary, and may or may not be peer reviewed, and may or may not have sufficient participants to be statistically relevant. Anecdotal accounts should not be taken as scientific results. Products discussed in this article are not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease. The FDA does not evaluate dietary supplements. Consult your doctor about possible interactions, allergies, and if you are considering using a natural and/or dietary supplements for any condition. Individual results will vary.

References

1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353813/

2 - https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/melatonin-what-you-need-to-know

3 - https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/

4 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8912284/

5 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35184264/

6 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8462692/

7 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8181734/

8 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7527439/

9 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8080935/

10 - https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Valerian-HealthProfessional/

11 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31728244/

12 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6764927/

13 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33177986/

14 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2995283/

15 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230760/

16 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22038497/

17 - https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/passionflower