Insomnia can play havoc with your physical and mental health, your work life and your relationships. So if you can find the best sleeping pills for you, they can transform your days as well as your nights. And after the year or two many of us have had – with weird work patterns, claustrophobic home lives and constant stress – more of us than ever need a little extra help falling asleep and staying asleep. The downside of sedating antihistamines is that your body develops a tolerance to them over a few days, and they effectively stop working after a week or so. So they’re for short-term use only.

That’s what happens when you add numerous ingredients (11 here, compared to just three in Sleep) — something has to give. Still, the Restored Advanced Sleep Aid should go some way to improving your sleep quality and duration, as well as relaxing you and lowering anxiety before bed. The supplement is suitable for vegans and has a non-habit-forming formula (as do all the others on this list). These are prescription-only in the UK. Tranquillisers and benzodiazepines can be pretty problematic meds, too. They have a much higher risk of dependency, withdrawal and side effects than OTC sleeping pills such as Nytol. OK, so you know you have a problem getting a decent night’s sleep and you turn to synthetic sleeping pills — that’s ok, isn’t it? Well, actually, you might want to think again.Adults on average need between seven to nine hours of effective sleep each night. Yes, some people can survive on less, but that’s a small percentage — and often people genuinely don’t realise how much they’re struggling when they don’t get enough. Studies show that getting five or six hours of sleep on a regular basis doesn’t encourage your body to ‘adapt’; instead, those people go about their everyday lives in an impaired state without even realising it. Finally, they don’t just have Montmorency cherries (like a couple of other supplements on this list) they use CherryPURE, a more concentrated version. This version is so potent that a 500mg dosage is the equivalent of 25g of Montmorency cherries. A bad night’s sleep can increase the levels of ghrelin in your body and reduce the levels of leptin. Leaving you hungrier than usual and making it harder to feel full. As you can imagine, a few bad nights in a row and you’re likely to start gaining weight. It also offers l-theanine, a nootropic that aids relaxation and could help the sleep of people who struggle with hyperactivity.

Highly recommended all-natural sleep supplement from a respected manufacturer, Opti-Nutra. Part of the ever-popular quality Performance Lab line. Performance Lab Sleep offers just three core ingredients, but each one works hard — they are: Montmorency tart cherries, magnesium and l-tryptophan. Like the l-tryptophan supplement by VitaFair (mentioned below), this supplement is a single-ingredient supplement and can therefore be combined with other single-ingredient sleep supplements such as magnesium or l-theanine. Chamomile and lavender are two of the most commonly used herbs in natural sleep aids. They’ve been used for millennia in herbal teas, herb-stuffed pillows and other sleep remedies.

Melatonin is a hormone that occurs naturally in your body to regulate sleeping patterns. Melatonin supplements fly off the shelves in the US, but in the UK you need a prescription. The NHS has more info here. That’s because studies demonstrate that taking synthetic sleeping pills doesn’t give you genuine sleep — your brainwaves are different when taking a synthetic pill compared to when you’re sleeping normally. You’re effectively just sedated, which means you’re not enjoying the benefits that genuine sleep can bring. Now that we understand the many benefits that are associated with good sleep, here’s your chance to look at some of our recommendations above in a bit more detail… EXAMINING IN DEPTH: Best Over-the-Counter Sleeping Pills UK Sleeping Pill #1. TOP-RATED — Sleep by Performance Lab Advanced Neuro Night Complex contains some very useful sleep-encouraging ingredients, such as 5-HTP (boosts serotonin), magnesium (eases muscles, calms the nervous system), and Montmorency tart cherries (a natural source of melatonin). You can take Kalms for longer than Nytol or Sominex without suffering ill effects or dependency. The small print says consult your doctor after four weeks, in case your insomnia has a medical cause. But valerian root is not addictive, and there are users who happily admit to taking Kalms for “months” without them stopping working.

Sleep deprivation can be caused by a whole range of things, from hormone imbalances to stress and anxiety,” says Hussain Abdeh, superintendent pharmacist at Medicine Direct. “If you’ve been struggling with stress, I’d say an OTC medication with a calming effect is your best option. Nytol, for example, would be a good choice. All of these are great reasons to look for something different… a natural form of over-the-counter sleeping pill that doesn’t cause any of the above. Why Choose a Natural Sleep Supplement? We’ve also got 187.5mg of Magnesium which has been shown to improve sleep quality in people who suffer from bad sleep. [5] There is also l-theanine, an amino acid that has been shown to aid relaxation, reduce anxiety, and improve sleep quality in people who suffer from hyperactivity during sleep (i.e. people with ADHD). Theanine is a very popular supplement ingredient for its calming properties. There are a couple of other ingredients that aren’t that exciting (coconut milk powder, lemon balm powder) and there is chamomile flower powder which may or may not help with sleep. Overall, this is a cool sleep supplement with a few decent benefits. One downside, however, is that it only contains 72mg of Montmorency cherry — compared to Performance Lab Sleep’s 500mg — which is a bit of a shame, and the reason why it doesn’t reach the top spot on our list.

Our Top Sleep Supplements and Sleep Stacks

HTP is a precursor of the ‘feel good hormone’ serotonin and may help to boost mood before and after sleep. HTP is also a precursor to melatonin, which has a powerful influence on the body’s sleep-wake cycle and can normalise sleep patterns.