Herbal teas for insomnia have thin evidence: a review of chamomile trials found better sleep quality scores (standardized mean difference -0.73) but no significant change in insomnia severity in the one trial that measured it, and 18 valerian trials found no change in the minutes it took to fall asleep. A cup of tea is a pleasant evening habit rather than a tested treatment, and sleep trouble that keeps going for weeks or hurts your days is a reason to see a doctor, since cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia has the strongest evidence.
Herbal teas for insomnia are the first thing many people reach for, and herbal tea for insomnia is one of the most common home remedies there is. The instinct is fair: a warm cup is cheap, slow and comes with a small ritual. The open question is whether anything in the cup does what a trial can measure.
This page goes through what randomized trials and pooled analyses found for chamomile, valerian and passionflower, how large the effects were and where the evidence stops. It describes studies, not what you should drink, and it is no substitute for a doctor if sleep has been bad for weeks.
Herbal teas for insomnia: what the trials add up to
Three plants carry almost all of the research. The table sorts what each was tested on and how to read it. The details, with sample sizes, follow below.
| Herb | Best evidence | What moved | What did not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chamomile | Two reviews (12 and 10 trials); a tea trial in postnatal women | Sleep quality scores; sleep onset and awakenings in some trials | Insomnia severity in the one trial that measured it; general anxiety scales |
| Valerian | Meta-analysis of 18 trials; umbrella review of 8 reviews | Self-reported better sleep quality (relative risk 1.37) | Minutes to fall asleep (0.70 min difference); quantified sleep quality |
| Passionflower | One crossover trial, 41 adults, tea for one week | Sleep quality rating in a 7-day diary | 5 of the 6 diary measures |
Three things stand out behind the table. First, several of the trials used extracts or capsules rather than tea. Second, the outcomes are mostly self-reported scores, which respond to expectation as well as to the plant. Third, the trials are short, from one to four weeks. Together they support "maybe a small effect on how sleep feels" and nothing stronger.
Chamomile tea for sleep and anxiety: what the trials measured
Chamomile is the most studied of the three. A systematic review and meta-analysis that included 12 randomized or quasi-randomized trials found a significant improvement in sleep quality after chamomile (standardized mean difference -0.73, 95% confidence interval -1.23 to -0.23). For anxiety the picture was split: three trials showed no difference in general anxiety (-0.15, -0.46 to 0.16), while scores on a generalized anxiety disorder scale improved by 1.43 points after 2 weeks and 1.79 points after 4. Only one trial looked at insomnia and found no significant change in the Insomnia Severity Index. Mild adverse events were reported in three trials.
Hieu TH, Dibas M, Surya Dila KA, et al. Therapeutic efficacy and safety of chamomile for state anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, insomnia, and sleep quality: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials and quasi-randomized trials. Phytother Res 2019. PMID 31006899
A second meta-analysis, published in 2024, included ten studies with 772 participants. Across five studies the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index fell by 1.88 points (95% confidence interval -3.46 to -0.31), but the studies disagreed strongly (I2 88.4%). Sleep onset was better in three of four studies and awakenings after sleep onset in two of three, while sleep efficiency did not change in two studies and got worse in one. Only one study tested the purity or potency of its product.
Kazemi A, Shojaei-Zarghani S, Eskandarzadeh P, et al. Effects of chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) on sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials. Complement Ther Med 2024. PMID 39106912
Two single trials show why the pooled numbers need care. In 80 Taiwanese postnatal women with poor sleep, drinking chamomile tea for 2 weeks lowered scores of physical-symptoms-related sleep inefficiency (p = 0.015) and depressive symptoms (p = 0.020) compared with usual care, but the groups were similar again at the 4-week follow-up, and the comparison group got no placebo tea.
Chang SM, Chen CH. Effects of an intervention with drinking chamomile tea on sleep quality and depression in sleep disturbed postnatal women: a randomized controlled trial. J Adv Nurs 2016. PMID 26483209
The one trial in people with diagnosed chronic insomnia used an extract, not tea. Thirty-four adults with primary insomnia for at least six months took a standardized chamomile extract or placebo for 28 days. No sleep diary measure differed significantly between the groups, though effect sizes for daytime functioning were small to moderate. The authors called it a pilot.
Zick SM, Wright BD, Sen A, et al. Preliminary examination of the efficacy and safety of a standardized chamomile extract for chronic primary insomnia: a randomized placebo-controlled pilot study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2011. PMID 21939549
So for chamomile tea for sleep and anxiety the fair summary is: some benefit on how sleep quality is rated, some signal for generalized anxiety scores, no proof for insomnia as a disorder.
Valerian: widely used, weakly supported
Valerian has been tested more often than chamomile in actual insomnia, and the result is flatter. A meta-analysis of 18 randomized placebo-controlled trials found the difference in time to fall asleep was 0.70 minutes (95% confidence interval -3.44 to 4.83) and the standardized difference on sleep quality scales was -0.02 (-0.35 to 0.31). Yet the dichotomous outcome "sleep quality improved, yes or no" favoured valerian (relative risk 1.37, 1.05 to 1.78). The authors read this as a possible subjective improvement that has not been shown with quantitative or objective measures.
Fernández-San-Martín MI, Masa-Font R, Palacios-Soler L, et al. Effectiveness of Valerian on insomnia: a meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials. Sleep Med 2010. PMID 20347389
An umbrella review in 2024 collected only systematic reviews, and eight were eligible. It concluded that valerian has a good safety profile but that the results showed no evidence of efficacy for insomnia, with a subjective gain in sleep quality at most, and it asked for better randomized trials because the existing ones are few, varied and of low methodological quality.
Valente V, Machado D, Jorge S, et al. Does valerian work for insomnia? An umbrella review of the evidence. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2024. PMID 38359657
Passionflower tea: one small crossover trial
Passionflower has far less behind it. In a double-blind crossover study, 41 adults aged 18 to 35 drank a cup of passionflower tea or placebo tea for a week each, with a washout week between. Sleep quality was rated better after passionflower in the diary (t(40) = 2.70, p < 0.01), and that was the only one of six diary measures that reached significance. Ten participants also had overnight sleep recordings. The people were healthy adults with mild fluctuations in sleep quality, and the authors describe the benefit as short-term and subjective.
Ngan A, Conduit R. A double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation of the effects of Passiflora incarnata (passionflower) herbal tea on subjective sleep quality. Phytother Res 2011. PMID 21294203
That is a proof of concept in a group that did not have insomnia. Nobody has shown what passionflower tea does for the kind of sleep trouble that brings people to search for a remedy.
What is the best tea for sleep and anxiety, and what does a cup actually do?
No study compared the herbs against each other, so "best" has no data behind it. What the trials can say is narrower: chamomile has the most evidence for sleep quality scores, valerian has the most trials with little to show for objective outcomes, passionflower has one small study. The best tea for sleep and anxiety, if the question is which one has been tested most, is chamomile, with all the caveats above.
A tea sleep aid works, to the extent it works, through a few ordinary routes: a quiet ten minutes before bed, warmth, a signal that the day is ending. Those are plausible but they are not what the trials isolated, because most compared the herb with usual care or placebo, not with a plain warm drink. Two practical details come from other studies. Caffeine is the first: in a home study of healthy volunteers, 400 mg of caffeine taken 6 hours before bedtime still disturbed sleep, so plain green or black tea late in the day is not a sleep tea.
Drake C, Roehrs T, Shambroom J, et al. Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed. J Clin Sleep Med 2013. PMID 24235903
The second is volume. A large mug close to bedtime can send you to the bathroom at night, which is its own cause of broken sleep (see Why do I keep waking up at night?).
Safety, and the limits of these trials
In the trials above, side effects were mild or not reported, and the valerian reviews judged its safety profile good. The limits are the length and the setting: one week for passionflower tea, two weeks for chamomile tea in postnatal women, 28 days for the chamomile extract in insomnia. Nobody followed people for years of nightly tea. Herbal products can also interact with prescription medicines, and pregnancy is a case where "natural" settles nothing, so a pharmacist or doctor is the right person to ask. The evidence on melatonin and magnesium is covered on their own pages.
When a tea is not enough: what the guidelines put first
For chronic insomnia disorder, the American College of Physicians recommends that all adults receive cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) as the initial treatment, a strong recommendation based on moderate-quality evidence. Medicines come in only as a shared decision when CBT-I alone has not worked.
Qaseem A, Kansagara D, Forciea MA, et al. Management of Chronic Insomnia Disorder in Adults: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med 2016. PMID 27136449
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reaches the same place for behavioral treatments: it strongly recommends multicomponent CBT-I for chronic insomnia disorder in adults.
Edinger JD, Arnedt JT, Bertisch SM, et al. Behavioral and psychological treatments for chronic insomnia disorder in adults: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine clinical practice guideline. J Clin Sleep Med 2021. PMID 33164742
What CBT-I involves is explained in CBT for insomnia explained, and What causes insomnia? sorts the reasons a bad stretch starts and keeps going. See a doctor if you have trouble sleeping for weeks, if you are sleepy or low through the day, or if a partner reports loud snoring with pauses in breathing, since sleep apnea can look like insomnia.
What a week of tracking can and cannot show
SleepTrace does not know what you drank, and it cannot tell you whether a tea worked. What it can do is give you a steadier record than memory: it estimates your sleep phases from sound, labels snoring, talking and coughing with playable clips (3 a month on the free plan), and marks apparent breathing pauses with a timestamp. If you want to try a tea for two weeks, a note of what you drank next to the nightly timeline lets you compare the nights yourself. It runs on iPhone and Android; keep the app open (the screen dims by itself) and the phone on its charger. The phases are estimates, and the sleep apnea indicator is a screening estimate, not a diagnosis.
Frequently asked questions
The evidence is modest and mixed. A review of chamomile trials found better sleep quality scores, but the one trial that measured insomnia severity found no significant change, and a meta-analysis of 18 valerian trials found no difference in the minutes it took to fall asleep. Most trials are small and last one to four weeks, so they cannot say much about a tea you drink for months.
No trial compared the teas against each other, so no tea can be called the best. Chamomile has the most trials: a systematic review found better sleep quality and lower scores on a generalized anxiety scale (a drop of 1.43 points after 2 weeks), but no difference on general anxiety measures in three trials. If you pick one, the label matters, because plain green and black tea contain caffeine.
In the trials, side effects were mild or not reported, and a review of valerian judged its safety profile good. But the trials ran one to four weeks, so there is little data on years of nightly use, and herbal products can interact with medicines. If you take regular medicines or are pregnant, ask a pharmacist or doctor first.
Not in a way trials could measure. A meta-analysis of 18 randomized trials found a mean difference of 0.70 minutes in time to fall asleep against placebo (95% confidence interval -3.44 to 4.83). More people reported better sleep quality on valerian (relative risk 1.37), which suggests a subjective effect, and an umbrella review of 8 systematic reviews called the evidence weak or inconclusive.
If trouble falling or staying asleep goes on for weeks, leaves you very tired or low in the day, or comes with loud snoring or witnessed breathing pauses, get it checked. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is the first-line treatment in both the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine guidelines, and a tea does not replace it.
SleepTrace is a wellness app, not a medical device. This article is general information, not medical advice. If your symptoms are frequent, severe or worrying, please talk to a doctor.
Tea or no tea, the open question is whether your nights are broken up or only feel that way. SleepTrace estimates your sleep phases from sound and puts snoring and coughing on a timeline with playable clips, 3 a month on the free plan. It does not know what you drank and cannot judge a tea; trouble sleeping that keeps going belongs with a doctor.
Hear your own night. SleepTrace turns a night of audio into your sleep phases, the sounds you made, and how it all trends. Works without a wearable, better with one. Your phone on the nightstand is enough to start. Get it for iPhone or Android →