Having Trouble Falling — or Staying — Asleep?
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Sleep problems don't always look the same.
Some people struggle to fall asleep.
Others drift off without much trouble, then find themselves wide awake an hour or two later — lying there, waiting, watching the clock.
Either way, the result by morning is the same: tired, foggy, and running on less than the body needs.
Some researchers have been exploring whether certain naturally occurring compounds play a role in how well the body falls and stays asleep.
Some of these compounds come directly from food.
And some may be harder to get enough of than most people realize.
Here's what some of that research has found.
The Signal That Tells the Body "Stay Asleep"
Most people have heard of melatonin.
But it's often misunderstood as a sedative — something that knocks a person out.
That's not really what it does.
Melatonin is the brain's internal timing signal.
It rises in the evening, stays elevated through the night, and gradually falls toward morning.
When that rhythm is working well, sleep tends to be consolidated — meaning the body stays asleep rather than surfacing repeatedly through the night.
What researchers have observed is that melatonin production tends to become less consistent as people age.
This means that the evening rise can become lower and less predictable over time.
A 2022 analysis in the Journal of Neurology reviewed 23 clinical trials and found melatonin supplementation had a statistically significant effect on sleep quality.
The benefit was most consistent in people with respiratory conditions, metabolic disorders, and primary sleep disorders — less uniform across other groups.
Food sources that contain melatonin include tart cherries, pistachios, kiwis, strawberries, tomatoes, and goji berries, and amounts vary by variety and growing conditions.
The Fruit That Keeps Showing Up in Sleep Research
Tart cherry is one of the more studied foods when it comes to sleep.
And what makes it stand out?
It contains tryptophan, serotonin, and melatonin — three compounds the body uses at different stages of its own sleep process.
A separate study by Howatson et al. gave 20 healthy adults Montmorency tart cherry juice concentrate or a placebo daily for 7 days.
Melatonin levels increased in the cherry juice group but not the placebo group.
Those taking cherry juice also slept longer and had better sleep efficiency.
Another study involving adults over 50 with confirmed insomnia used 240 mL of tart cherry juice twice daily for two weeks—once in the morning and once one to two hours before bed.
Sleep time and sleep quality ratings both improved compared to placebo.
The researchers proposed that tart cherry's effect may work partly through how it influences tryptophan availability overnight, not just its direct melatonin content.
This was a small pilot study with eight completers — meaningful as a starting point.
Tart cherry juice concentrate is how it was used across most of these studies, and it's available year-round in most grocery stores and online.
Why the Body's Own Production Process Matters
The body doesn't just absorb melatonin from food and use it directly.
It also makes its own — through a chain of steps that starts with tryptophan, moves through serotonin, and ends with melatonin being released in the evening.
5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) sits in the middle of that chain — one step closer to serotonin than tryptophan is, which is why researchers have looked at it separately.
A 12-week randomized controlled trial published in Clinical Nutrition (2024) gave 30 older adults (average age 66) either 100 mg of 5-HTP daily or no supplementation.
The study found 5-HTP had a favorable effect on certain sleep quality measures — particularly in people who were already sleeping poorly.
There was also an interesting finding around gut health — poor sleepers in the 5-HTP group showed greater diversity in their gut bacteria compared to the control group.
5-HTP is found naturally in the seeds of Griffonia simplicifolia, a West African plant — which is the form most commonly studied in sleep research and the most practical way to access it.
The Calming Signal That's Easy to Overlook
L-theanine is an amino acid found in green tea and matcha.
It doesn't sedate.
Research suggests is that it may work by reducing the mental restlessness that keeps people lying awake even when the body is tired.
A review in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that 200 mg before bed may support sleep quality.
L-theanine helps to quiet an overactive mind rather than forcing drowsiness — and without causing grogginess the next day.
Green tea and matcha are the most accessible natural sources.
A cup contains roughly 8–60 mg depending on variety and brewing method.
So, for those who enjoy tea regularly, it's a simple starting point.
The Upstream Vitamins Most People Don't Connect to Sleep
The melatonin production chain — tryptophan → 5-HTP → serotonin → melatonin — doesn't run on its own.
It requires specific cofactors at key steps to work.
Two B vitamins are part of that.
Vitamin B6 is needed as a coenzyme at the step that converts compounds into serotonin.
Its deficiency has been linked to sleep disturbances in nutritional research.
It's found in chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna, beef liver, chickpeas, bananas, and potatoes.
Vitamin B2 works alongside B6 in the same production pathway, and its role in the upstream steps leading to melatonin synthesis is established in nutritional biochemistry.
Food sources include beef, eggs, dairy, and almonds.
The Bigger Picture
Sleep consolidation — staying asleep through the night — appears to depend on a biological process that's more intricate than most people realize.
Several of the compounds above are involved at different points.
Some influence the body's timing signal, some feed into the production of sleep-regulating chemicals, and some appear to affect how settled the nervous system is going into the night.
Of all the food-based approaches researchers have studied specifically in the context of sleep quality, tart cherry has the most direct published evidence behind it.
There's a short video below that walks through one specific approach centered on this.
Scientific References
Gholami F, et al. Effect of melatonin supplementation on sleep quality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Neurol. 2022. PMID: 33417003
Losso JN, et al. Pilot Study of the Tart Cherry Juice for the Treatment of Insomnia and Investigation of Mechanisms. Am J Ther. 2018. PMID: 28901958
Howatson G, et al. Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and sleep quality. Eur J Nutr. 2012. PMID: 22038497
Rao TP, et al. In Search of a Safe Natural Sleep Aid. J Am Coll Nutr. 2015. PMID: 25759004
Peuhkuri K, et al. A combination of melatonin, vitamin B6 and medicinal plants in the treatment of mild-to-moderate insomnia. Complement Ther Med. 2019. PMID: 31331545
Sutanto CN, Xia X, Heng CW, Tan YS, Lee DPS, Fam J, Kim JE. The impact of 5-hydroxytryptophan supplementation on sleep quality and gut microbiota composition in older adults: A randomized controlled trial. Clin Nutr. 2024. PMID: 38309227
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