It might seem like sleep is such a simple thing. But if you have anxiety, insomnia or general issues sleeping, you might need a little help. Lately, I’ve been having problems sleeping and didn’t know what to do about it. I don’t like the idea of using sleeping pills or any other medications. The only time I’ve ever used sleeping pills was when I was sick and coughing through the night. But they make me oversleep and I’m not interested in that. Not to mention the fact that they aren’t always effective or safe. Instead, I was thinking of trying the best tea for sleep.
There are a lot of different teas you can try, which is great because that will give you a little variety. Various teas can help with a variety of issues that cause sleep deprivation. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, tea could be the simple solution for your problem! I also want to touch on a few extra tips that might help you get your sleep schedule under control.
Best Tea Brands
When trying to find the best tea to help you sleep, you will want to check out the best tea brands first. You need the best brands that contain the perfect ingredients! These are a just few favorites. They are all great brands and I would recommend mixing and matching teas to find the right blends for you. I also think it’s a pretty cool fact that some of these companies have been around for centuries!
- Twining
- Celestial Seasonings
- Bigelow
- Traditional Medicinals Organic
- Yogi
All of these are fantastic brands that each have an incredible variety of different flavors or blends of flavors. Drinking tea before bed can be so relaxing and is a great way to wind down at the end of the day. So these are just suggestions for what brands to look into. They are all found in local stores or online.
The Best Tea for Sleep
I’m going to cover a wide variety of calming teas. So this is a quick list of herbal teas and their benefits. Different types of herbal tea are full of all kinds of individual benefits. But here we are going to focus on tea for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and sleep aid. So if you’re looking for the best tea for good night sleep, you should be able to find a few on here!
Chamomile Tea
Chamomile tea is a fan favorite! Most people think it’s the best herbal tea because it’s packed full of benefits and tastes so good. It is a common tea and a top pick as the best tea for health and relaxation. It’s easy to find, and most people have it on hand. They usually don’t even know all the chamomile tea benefits! It contains anti-inflammatory properties, can help treat menstrual cramps, is a fantastic digestion aid, and helps keep your blood sugar down. It has a sedating effect that makes it the best tea for sleep, at least for most people!
Chamomile Tea Helps With:
- Upset stomach
- Insomnia
- Anxiety
- Stress
All these benefits come together to make chamomile the perfect sleep aid. It also comes in a wide variety of flavors! My personal favorite is Sweet Apple Chamomile by Celestial Seasons! It’s a perfect blend for me because it has some natural sweetness. Plus, I love apples, but most apple teas or desserts add so many spices. So this is the perfect happy medium.
Valerian Tea and Lemon Balm Tea
So I put these two together because you can get the Traditional Medicinals Organic Valerian Tea. Valerian is something that can help with sleeplessness. It works as a mild sedative to help you drift off to sleep a little more quickly. But most people like getting it in a supplement form, rather than tea. It has a very particular smell that scares most people away. But this blend by Traditional Medicinals used a few different herbs to make this tea taste and smell much better. Those herbs include lemon balm leaf, peppermint leaf, caraway fruit, passionflower, and licorice root. It is the best herbal tea for sleep because it will help you relax!
Decaf Green Tea
If you didn’t already know, green tea is so good for you. But have you ever looked into all the incredible benefits of drinking green tea before bed? It contains L-theanine, which is an amino acid with a variety of benefits. Those benefits include anti-anxiety and relaxation to help you get a good night sleep.
The other benefits of drinking green tea before bed make it an even bigger perk! It may help reduce the risk of cancer, improve cardiovascular health, boost your metabolism and your immune system. By drinking it about an hour before bed, you can reduce stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression. Green tea helps elevate your mood and stimulates positive brain functions.
There are even more benefits you could look into, not just for drinking this tea before bed, but throughout the day! It’s also a great option if you aren’t fond of strong tasting herbal teas. The flavor of green tea is exceptionally mild. You may not even need a sweetener. But it always tastes good with a splash of honey!
Ginger Tea
If you’ve ever heard someone say that you should drink ginger ale when you have an upset stomach, consider skipping the soda and trying ginger tea. Ginger is a root that is packed full of antioxidants and benefits. It will ease an upset stomach and nausea caused by IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) or morning sickness. It also fights cancer, soothes inflammation, protects your brain health, and most importantly, can help you sleep!
Most people aren’t partial to ginger tea on its own, but you could consider a blend that includes it! Traditional Medicinals makes a Ginger With Chamomile Organic Tea that would be the best tea for sleep and relaxation!
Hibiscus Tea
Hibiscus tea is packed full of incredible benefits as well as some of the other teas I’ve listed so far. But you should drink hibiscus tea before bed if you want to relax and get some additional benefits out of it. You can add tart cherry juice to the tea if you’d like to because that contains melatonin.
Hibiscus tea doesn’t make the best sleep drink, at least as far as helping you fall asleep. But it could ease some of the other problems that might make it harder to fall asleep. It can ease digestion, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, provides relief from menstrual cramps and inflammation. So this tea can undoubtedly make you all around more comfortable, so it is easier to fall asleep. But it will not have a sedative or soothing effect like some of the others, although you could consider trying Green Tea and Hibiscus!
Lavender Tea
If you can be swept off to bed by the comforting scent of lavender, you may also want to consider drinking lavender tea! By soothing you enough through smell and warmth, lavender tea could be just the thing you need to relax. It also contains zinc, potassium, and magnesium.
Lavender tea is another anti-inflammatory tea that will soothe your aching joints or muscles throughout the day.
Lavender is another tea I would recommend mixing with some other herbs, like this Chamomile and Lavender Tea. It helps make it the best tea for sleep aid and nighttime anxiety. It will help you relax enough to enjoy your night and drift off to sleep without any trouble. It’s going to be the best bedtime tea if you love the scent. My mom loves the scent of lavender so she would find this to be the most calming tea of all!
Sleepytime Tea
I’m sure most of you have tried or at least heard of sleepytime tea. It is supposed to be the best tea for sleeping. It is by far the best herbal tea blend to help you sleep. You might be wondering what sleepy time tea ingredients make it so good for relaxation. Regular sleepytime tea is made up of chamomile, spearmint, lemongrass, tilia flowers, blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn, and rosebuds. So it’s quite the list, but the mix is very aromatic and relaxing. It also tastes lovely with a bit of honey!
If you have a lot of trouble sleeping, you could even try the Sleepytime Extra tea. You might expect these two to have pretty much the same ingredients. But the difference in the recipe makes th Sleepytime Extra stronger. It is a mix of spearmint, lemongrass, hawthorn, orange blossoms, and valerian. The “extra” sleepytime strength comes from the valerian in this blend. As I mentioned before, it works as a mild natural sedative to help you get the sleep you need.
Tips For Getting Better Sleep
When it comes to getting better sleep, you need more than just tea. Sure, you might be able to find something that claims to be the best tea for sleeping, but it certainly won’t work if you pair it with bad habits. So I quickly want to go over some things that you can improve. By getting into a better routine, you could improve your sleep schedule. If you can get into a better sleep schedule, you will function better in the long run. Trust me, I’m very experienced with bad habits and have been researching all the things I need to do to get into a better routine and schedule.
Schedule
I understand what if you have sleeping problems, getting into a good schedule is practically impossible. But I wanted to list this one because it is the overall goal. It also doesn’t just have t do with sleep. I work from home and have always had a very flexible schedule. So keeping myself in a good routine has never been my strong suit. I always get everything done that I need to. But I do it without getting enough sleep and give myself a lot of stress over time.
So plan out your day if you can. Set aside times to do things and times to relax. Don’t zone out on your phone when you have things you need to do. Get them done early and spend time on your phone later. But not too close to bed!
Save Your Bedroom for Sleep
This tip might seem really simple if you have a job outside the house. But it’s hard if you work at home as I do, or if you have to bring work home with you from time to time. Then your bed becomes a place where you overthink and might often be stressed out. So if you can set up a separate office area, that would be best. I know how hard it can be though. This year has been the first time I have ever had to have my very own office…and it ended up being the hottest room in the house this summer. So it has been a struggle, but it’s something I need to stick to. Otherwise, I spend a lot of time on my computer at the end of the day.
Take a Relaxing Bath Before Bed
In a fairly similar way to tea, a bath can be warm and relaxing. You can add bath salts, essential oils, bath bombs, or whatever else you need to make it the perfect bath! Lavender is especially great for a bath because you can lay back and relax in the warm tub with the soothing aroma. Try a bath before bed to relax!
Pray or Meditate
Everyone is different, my form of meditation is through prayer. But a lot of people enjoy using meditation as a way to relax and center themselves. The world is a hectic and stressful place. It’s easy to get caught up in everything and have issues sleeping. It can be especially difficult if you struggle with anxiety or depression. I don’t personally think I have issues with either, but I do struggle with insomnia recently and skip sleep completely a few times a week.
So meditation can be the perfect way to focus on yourself for a while and cut out the rest of the world. Sometimes you need more alone time than you think. Alone time that is fully alone, without any technology or distractions.
Cut Out Caffeine Early in the Day
If you’re anything like me, caffeine isn’t something you think about. That might seem crazy to some of you. But back in college, I could drink an energy drink while I worked on homework late into the night. Then as soon as I managed to finish, I passed right out. No problem. These days I mostly stick to coffee and tea, but I drink caffeine at all hours, and it doesn’t feel like it affects me. But cutting caffeine out around lunchtime is a good rule of thumb if you need to get to sleep at a reasonable time.
Quitting Smoking
Nicotine is addictive and is acts as a stimulant. Smokers commonly have a harder time sleeping because it can throw their internal clocks off. They can also be more restless, and they are more likely to develop sleep apnea. That isn’t even counting all the other health issues that come with smoking. But as far as sleep goes, smoking can destroy your normal sleep schedule. So if you plan on quitting, sleep might be harder to achieve at first, but you will notice an incredible difference if you stick it out!
Only Go to Bed When You’re Tired
So this is a huge issue for me. I have a hard time because I will be tired, get into bed, and wake up. My mind will start to overthink or start thinking about work. So I’m the type of person who really needs to learn how to wind down before bed.
Tea is a great way to relax. So is reading a book, working on a simple project like crocheting or journalling. But you want to stay off your phone, computer, TV, and anything else electronic. They might seem like a good way to relax but they can keep you awake, and you get sucked in. Before you know it you’ll be wasting a lot of time at the end of the day because you won’t notice all the time that has passed.
Exercise
It’s best to exercise at some point during the day if you can. You don’t necessarily want to do it right before bed. But studies have shown that getting a light workout each day can help you sleep better at night.
Conclusion
When it comes to sleep, you need to get into a good schedule to make things much easier. But if you just need a little nudge in the right direction, find the best tea for sleep that works for you! There are a few options for teas for anxiety or tea for depression. So you really need to get to the root of your problem. Having a cup of tea is an excellent way to relax before crawling under the covers. But it isn’t the only way to solve your problems.
If you have severe insomnia, depression, or anxiety that keeps you up all night, consult with your doctor. Tea might be a natural and simple way to relax and soothe your body and your nerves, but it can’t fix everything. So take care of yourself and get into a good routine, and have a cup of your favorite tea!