I’ve seen an old TikTok ‘sleep hack’ doing the rounds again and I’m here to tell you that no, boiling lettuce in water and drinking it before bed will not result in the best night’s sleep you’ve ever had. Shocking, I know.
I was pleased to see the rise of the ‘sleepmaxxing’ trend, as you can imagine. Being the Sleep Features Editor for Tom’s Guide, it’s great to see people recognizing just how important sleep is for our overall health.
However, as expected from the tiresome world of social media, it brought with it a lot of unsolicited, unconfirmed ways to hack your sleep.
Enter lettuce water.
I will briefly debunk this method of falling asleep quickly, but I’m also here to provide some real, science-based ways you can fall asleep quickly tonight. And the next night. And the next.
Why drinking lettuce water won’t help you fall asleep fast
So, we’ve established that it doesn’t work. But why not? If you put the kettle down and pop that lettuce back in the fridge, I’ll explain.
The reason this hack became popular was thanks to a simple, 50 second TikTok video of a woman trying it.
After making a mug of steaming lettuce, the content creator videos herself barely able to open her eyes, thanks to how effective the sleep-inducing benefits of lettuce are. This video racked up an impressive 1.5 million likes and over 13,000 comments of users expressing their excitement over this new hack.
Lettuce has long been known for its sedative effects, thanks to an ingredient called lactucarium. However, the only scientific evidence around the effects of this substance on sleep is in mice.
The study often cited, sleep-inducing effect of lettuce (Lactuca sativa) varieties on pentobarbital-induced sleep, measured sleep latency and sleep duration.
While they did see an decrease in sleep latency with certain types of lettuce (Romaine), some made no difference. It was sleep duration that increased for all the different lettuce used. But, the researchers used dried, powdered lettuce leaves and seed extracts, and to reiterate, results seen on mice do not equate to the results we’d see in humans.
So, evidence backing up this sleep method is severely limited. And, even if the sedative effect of lettuce was proven in humans, you’d likely not see the effect with a cup full of wilting leaves in water.
3 science-backed ways to fall asleep quickly
Okay, debunking over. Now it’s time for the good stuff. Real, science-based, factually accurate ways to fall asleep quickly — starting tonight.
1. Breathing exercises
A study published in 2019 found that using breathing techniques like slow, deep breathing, is an effective treatment for insomnia and can help you fall asleep quickly.
One reason these exercises are effective is because it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for our rest and digest responses and needed for falling asleep, as opposed to our sympathetic nervous system which activates our ‘fight or flight’ response. As you can imagine, the latter response is not very conducive to sleep.
Breathing techniques like the 4-7-8 method or box breathing (inhaling for 4 seconds, holding for four seconds and exhaling for four seconds) are super easy to try from the comfort of your bed. You’ll notice just how effective they are when you feel your body let go of any tension.
2. Progressive muscle relaxation
Studies have proven that an exercise known as progressive muscle relaxation can improve sleep quality, increase slow-wave sleep (known as deep sleep) as well as relax the mind and body.
Again, this is a simple method you can use in bed when you’re struggling to fall asleep. It involves working your way down from the top of your body, gently tensing each muscle group and then letting it go.
Placing your attention on the sensation of tensing and then relaxing helps focus your mind and brings you into your body, and the release of tension helps relax your body.
When paired with deep breathing for each release of tension, you can stimulate your vagus nerve which will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and slow down your heart rate.
Together, this helps you achieve a mindset and physical state that is ready for sleep.
3. Keep a consistent sleep schedule
Now, while you can try the previous two methods tonight, this one might take some planning. But it’s arguably the most important and effective way to fall asleep quickly.
Our sleep is controlled by our circadian rhythm. This is an internal body clock that regulates when we feel sleepy and when we feel energetic depending on the release of sleep hormones like melatonin and cortisol.
By keeping the same wake and sleep time every day, you’ll naturally feel sleepy in the evenings and energized in the mornings. Essentially, you keep your internal clock ‘in time’, meaning melatonin (the sleepy hormone) will be released close to your bedtime to make it easier and quicker to fall asleep.
A recent study found that this kind of sleep regularity is actually more important than how long you sleep for. So don’t underestimate this simple lifestyle change. Instead, check out our guide on how to fix your sleep schedule.
