There are hundreds of natural sleep aids on the market today. Long gone are the days when your only options were lavender oil, a glass of whiskey, or a bad night’s sleep! But with so many sleeping supplements out there, choosing the right one for you can be difficult. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the best sleep aids on the market today. Find out which sleep aid made #1 below!
The “Sleep Problem”
Sleep is a major concern for our readers. It is actually a serious concern for everyone these days; a staggering number of people in the West report getting less than the recommended 8 hours of solid sleep per night.
The “sleep problem” is getting so bad that some adults in the US and Canada report getting less than 6 hours sleep every single night.
Health bodies are getting worried – we know that sleep deprivation has very real effects on both mental and physical health. Most people are aware that a lack of sleep negatively impacts mood, motivation, and cognitive function. Fewer people know that getting less than 7-8 hours sleep per night greatly increases your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
As such, governments and NGOs are looking at ways to fix the developed world’s chronic sleep problems. If they don’t, then in the coming years incidences of heart disease and cancer – not to mention mental health issues like psychosis, anxiety and depression – will continue to rise.
With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that more and more people are turning to natural sleep aids to fix their sleeplessness.
Natural Sleep Aids
In recent years, the quality of natural sleep aids has increased dramatically. So has the diversity of products on the market.
There are now dozens of high quality sleeping aids on sale. With so much choice, and so much variety, it is incredibly difficult to figure out which product is right for you.
That’s why we spend hours every week researching and reviewing the latest sleep aids to hit the shelves. Below you will find our selection; we believe that these products are genuinely the best sleep aids on sale today.
All of these sleep aids all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Take your time to read up on each product and choose the one that suits your particular needs best!
Best Sleep Aids 2019
These are the best sleep stacks currently on sale in 2019. If you think you know of a sleep aid which should be listed here, then let us know! We’ll take a look and get right back to you!
We’ll now go through each of these products in more detail, explaining why we believe them to be the best natural sleep aids today. While these supplements have different selling points, they all offer higher quality and better value for money than their competitors.
#1 – Performance Lab Sleep
Performance Lab Sleep is the best sleep aid in the world right now. No other stack even comes close – Performance Lab Sleep is way ahead of the competition. It is a complete sleep aid; it reduces sleep latency, promotes deep, restorative sleep, and helps you stay asleep for longer. It contains a large dose of high quality, plant-derived melatonin. This means it not only promotes deeper sleep, but it also helps cure jet lag.
Main benefits:
- Complete package; covers all the bases
- Unbeatable ingredient quality
- Uses nature-identical forms of each ingredient
Learn more: Read our full review
Visit website: PerformanaceLab.com
#2 – Primal One Sleep Aid
Primal One are a new brand to come onto the market, but they’re quickly making a name for themselves as manufacturers of good quality supplements. Primal One Sleep Aid is a high quality sleep stack. It provides good servings of ingredients which have been scientifically proven to enhance sleep. It covers several different bases; sleep latency, depth, quality, anxiety, and sleep duration. Primal One Sleep Aid is, all things considered, a fantastic natural sleep supplement. It is one of the best sleep aids on sale today.
Main benefits:
- Covers several different aspects of sleep
- Helps with sleep latency
- Good value for money
Learn more: Check out our full review
#3 – LUNA
LUNA is one of the best sleep aids on the market right now. Now, some of you might be surprised to see LUNA listed as one of our top rated sleep aids. After all, it contains many of the same ingredients as other sleeping supplements out there, many of which we aren’t big fans of. However, where LUNA stands out is the generous doses is provides. Unlike many mid-range sleep aids, LUNA delivers 6mg of melatonin. This makes it useful for curing jet lag as well as promoting deeper, higher quality sleep.
Main benefits:
- Very large dose of melatonin – good for jet lag
- Great for suppressing nighttime anxiety
Learn more: See our full review
These are, in our opinion, the best natural sleep supplements on the market right now. If you’re looking to get a better night’s sleep, then these stacks can definitely help. Of course, they all have their unique selling points. If you want help with jet lag, then LUNA might be the better option for you. If you have serious issues with night time anxiety, then Primal One Sleep Aid might be the right call.
But if you want an all-round sleep enhancer – reduced sleep latency, deeper sleep, less tossing and turning, etc – then Performance Lab Sleep is the ideal option. This sleep enhancer is a real all-rounder; it covers all the bases with just a handful of ingredients, and the quality of the ingredients is incredible.
If you want to improve your sleeping patterns, then the first thing you should do is address any obvious issues with your behavior. Put down the screens after 8pm, lay off the caffeine, and invest in a better bed.
But if you want to go the extra mile, then investing in a top quality sleep aid can make the world of difference.
How To Choose The Right Sleep Aid For You
It is important that you use the sleep supplement that is right for your individual needs.
Different sleep stacks offer different benefits, and they don’t all work in the exact same way. Some exclusively focus on single sleeping problems.
For example, some sleep aids focus entirely on inducing sleep quickly and keeping you asleep for a long time. These will generally just be full of melatonin.
Other sleep aids are more comprehensive. Real full-spectrum sleep enhancers cover every aspect of sleep – latency, duration, quality, and disturbances. The best sleep aids will always provide a multi-pronged approach to sleep enhancement. That’s the best way to get results.
A small number specialize in promoting lucid dreaming, although this isn’t something we think needs to be achieved through supplementation (healthy sleeping patterns promote lucid dreaming more than anything else).
You therefore need to think carefully about what it is you want to achieve from a sleep aid.
We recommend following these steps before spending any money:
- Monitor your sleep for a few weeks, tracking hours slept, how you feel in the morning, how long you think it takes you to fall asleep, everything!
- Decide on 1-3 main issues you want to rectify
- Look at the best ways to treat these issues – it may be through other means than supplements
- Begin using your chosen sleep aid, tracking your sleep all the time
- After 6 weeks, take a break from your sleep aid to assess how it’s working for you
Following these steps will make finding the best sleep aid for you a lot easier. As we’ve already said, there is no ideal sleep aid for every instance. You need to do some research, put in the effort, and figure out what kind of sleep stack you really need to be using.
Ingredients To Look For In OTC Sleeping Pills
The best way to decide which sleep aid is right for you is to get acquainted with the most commonly used ingredients.
This is especially important when you’re dealing with all-natural sleep supplements.
For the most part, the synthetic, pharmaceutical-grade sleeping pills have the same effects in the vast majority of people – they knock you out cold and leave you feeling a bit confused and groggy when you come around! But natural substances all have different effects, and they might work better or worse for you depending on your particular circumstances.
So you really need to do your research. You should learn as much as you can about the ingredients used in sleep aids and figure out which ones you stand to benefit from the most.
Here are some of the ingredients you should always look for in natural, over the counter sleep aids.
Melatonin
Melatonin should form the backbone of any sleep stack. It is the most reliable, effective sleep supplement you can use. It reduces sleep latency, helping you fall asleep faster. It promotes deeper, more restful sleep. It also helps keep you asleep for longer. As if that wasn’t enough, using melatonin in a targeted manner can help you get over jet lag faster too. With almost no side effects and no known long-term risks, every sleep aid in the world needs to provide some high quality melatonin.
Look for a potent, natural form of melatonin. The vast majority of sleep aids use synthetic melatonin. The body can definitely use synthetic melatonin, but it has a much easier time utilizing it if you get it from a natural source. Optimal active dose is 2-5mg (or slightly more for serious jet lag).
Magnesium
Magnesium is extremely useful for people who find themselves waking up several times throughout the night. It is also great for helping you ‘switch off’ your brain at night; if you find you just can’t shut your inner monologue off as you lie in bed, magnesium can help.
Magnesium supplementation reduces blood pressure, suppresses muscle contractions, and reduces neuron activity. It therefore delivers total body relaxation and anxiety reduction.
Ideally, try to use a more bioavailable form of magnesium than simple magnesium. Opt for glycinate or citrate whenever you can. It is more expensive, but it’s worth it!
Tryptophan
Tryptophan is probably the most versatile natural sleep enhancer there is, but unfortunately, very few sleep aids use it! Tryptophan is an amino acid. It is a direct precursor to and intermediary of serotonin; one of your primary “happy hormones”. Serotonin produces feelings of intimacy, euphoria, relaxation, and serenity. Increasing serotonin is a good way to reduce anxiety and induce sleep, and the best way to increase serotonin (at least via supplements) is to utilize tryptophan.
We recommend using tryptophan rather than 5-HTP because 5-HTP is not well absorbed in the gut. When it is, much of it is used by the enteric nervous system. We believe tryptophan is much more reliable for raising serotonin that 5-HTP.
Not every sleep aid needs to contain all of these ingredients. Some sleep stacks are designed to treat things like jet lag and nothing else. As such, you can get away with just using melatonin and a few other substances.
However, a complete, comprehensive sleep stack really needs to contain all of these ingredients. Ideally, your stack will use top-tier forms of each ingredient, they would be present in good doses, and they would be used in combination with a few other substances which promote better sleep.