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Here is a list of supplements for sleep. Before you read it, two things that matter more than the list itself.
First, this is not a list of the supplements that work for sleep. It is a list of the supplements where the research has actually invested in sleep as an outcome, ranked by how concentrated that research is on sleep rather than scattered across a hundred other outcomes. Those are different statements. A supplement can be heavily studied for sleep and show mixed results. A supplement can be lightly studied for sleep and still be the right thing for you. The list tells you where the field has pointed its attention, not what it concluded. The conclusions live on the consensus pages, and you should read them.
Second, "most studied" is not the same as "most effective." Below, where we say a supplement is well-researched for sleep, we mean the literature has volume and focus on sleep outcomes. Whether the literature agrees that it helps — and how confidently — is a separate question we answer per supplement, with the strength and direction shown honestly. Some of these have clean, supportive evidence. Some are noisy. We will say which is which.
With that said, here is where the sleep research concentrates.
The supplement most tightly coupled to sleep in the entire literature, and for good reason: it is the hormone your body uses to signal that it is time to sleep. The research on melatonin and sleep is voluminous and focused, and for sleep onset — falling asleep, especially when your rhythm is disrupted by jet lag or shift work — the evidence is relatively supportive. For other sleep outcomes, like total sleep time and quality, the picture is more mixed and more dependent on dose and on the person. Melatonin is the clearest case of a supplement whose research concentration matches the popular intuition, though the popular intuition overstates how universally effective it is.
An herbal supplement with a long traditional use for sleep and anxiety, and a research base that, while smaller than melatonin's, is genuinely concentrated on sleep outcomes. The evidence is not unanimous — valerian studies are inconsistent in dose and preparation, which is a recurring problem with herbal supplements — but there is enough focused work that it belongs on any honest shortlist. The consensus page is worth reading for the specifics, because the preparation matters a great deal.
A more surprising entry. Saffron has accumulated a focused research base not only for mood but for sleep, and the concentration of that work on sleep outcomes places it here. The evidence is emerging rather than settled, and the doses used in studies are specific and often higher than what people casually take. This is exactly the kind of supplement where the gap between "researched" and "proven" is worth respecting, and where checking the direction and strength on the consensus page is the whole point.
Better known for mood, but with a research footprint that touches sleep, often through the depression-sleep connection rather than as a direct sleep aid. Its inclusion reflects the fact that sleep and mood outcomes are entangled in the literature, and a supplement studied for one is frequently studied for the other. St John's wort also has well-documented interactions with a long list of medications, which is the kind of thing that makes the safety information on its page more important than its rank on any list.
A mineral whose research reaches across an unusually large number of outcomes — muscle, mood, metabolic, sleep — which is precisely why it is interesting. Magnesium has real research on sleep, but because it is studied for so many things, its purity as a sleep supplement is lower than melatonin's, which is one of the reasons it sits where it does rather than at the top. The evidence for sleep is present and somewhat supportive, particularly in people who are deficient, but it is not as sleep-specific as the supplements above it.
The ranking method, which we explain in detail elsewhere, deliberately favors supplements whose research is characteristic of sleep — concentrated there rather than spread across every outcome under the sun. This is why a blockbuster like vitamin D, which has been studied for almost everything, does not top the sleep list even though it has plenty of studies. Volume alone is not the point. Volume focused on the outcome you care about is the point.
But the ranking is only the start. For any supplement here, the question that actually matters is whether the research on it and sleep points in a supportive direction, and how confidently. That answer is per-supplement, and it is the thing our consensus pages exist to show. Use this list to know where to look. Then look.
Browse every sleep supplement with its evidence, or explore the other health goals →
