What are the Best Vitamins for Sleep?

Whether it’s because of stress at work or home, environmental factors, or a medical condition, getting a good night’s sleep seems harder than ever.

However, regardless of how difficult sleep is to come by, it remains extremely important for your mental and physical well-being.

Therefore, if you’re struggling to get enough sleep at night, you should consider taking vitamins to help.

The 5 best vitamins to help with sleep

Vitamin B6 

In addition to boosting your immune system and helping you have a clear mind every day, vitamin B6 is important for sleep. Vitamin B6 helps your body produce adequate amounts of melatonin and serotonin, two hormones that play crucial roles in sleep. Finally, vitamin B6 may also help you remember your dreams more vividly, which implies that it helps enhance the REM stage of the sleep cycle.

Vitamin D 

Vitamin D is often associated with having healthy teeth and bones. While this is true, vitamin D has also been shown to help people maintain a healthy sleep schedule. Vitamin D is important for initially falling asleep, staying asleep, and having good sleep quality. While studies on vitamin D and sleep¹ are still emerging, most studies show that people with vitamin D deficiencies also have sleep issues.

Vitamin E 

The way that vitamin E helps with sleep isn’t quite as straightforward as other vitamins and minerals. Vitamin E is extremely important for forming memories, cognitive function, and brain health in general. In helping your overall cognitive function and making your brain healthier, vitamin E also helps with sleep.

Vitamin C 

As with vitamin D and B vitamins, vitamin C is a major player in maintaining your immune system and health. Vitamin C is also a super vitamin that helps you maintain a healthy sleep schedule. While vitamin C won’t help you fall asleep, it helps you stay asleep² and reduces your chances of waking up during the night.

Vitamin B12 

While all B vitamins can help with sleep, vitamin B12 is especially beneficial. Vitamin B12 directly impacts your mental health and helps reduce the chances of depression. Because depression can severely inhibit your circadian rhythm and disrupt your sleep-wake schedule, it’s important to get plenty of vitamin B12. While this vitamin won’t always fix your sleep problems, it will help if your sleep problems are linked to depression.

Lesser-known supplements and minerals to improve your sleep

Magnesium 

Although not technically a vitamin, the importance of magnesium can’t be overstated when it comes to sleep. Magnesium is a mineral the body produces naturally, but not always in large enough amounts to be effective. The reason that magnesium is so beneficial for sleep is that it acts as a natural relaxant. It can calm your mind, relax your muscles, and help you produce melatonin, which is important for falling asleep.

Calcium 

Like magnesium, calcium is a mineral and not a vitamin. While calcium is often linked to healthy bones, it also helps produce certain amino acids that act as sedatives and help you fall asleep. Calcium also plays an important role in helping you achieve and maximize the REM stage of your sleep.

Potassium 

Like many of the other vitamins and minerals on this list, potassium doesn’t help you fall asleep. However, potassium plays a critical role in helping you stay asleep, and deficiencies are linked to insomnia and sleep disturbances.

Melatonin

Last but not least, melatonin is the most important supplement when it comes to falling and staying asleep. Melatonin is a hormone that your body produces naturally. However, for a variety of reasons, your body may not produce enough of it to function at its best. When this happens, you’ll have difficulty falling and staying asleep.

Vitamin IV therapy vs oral supplements 

Each of the vitamins, minerals, and hormones listed above plays a crucial role in your sleep health. While the body produces most of them naturally, and the rest are found in nature and your diet, you may need to supplement to maintain the levels you need via an oral supplement or IV therapy.

Oral supplements are cheaper and more readily available but aren’t very efficient, meaning it will take time to see results. IV therapy, on the other hand, delivers vitamins and minerals directly into your bloodstream. From there, blood distributes these supplements efficiently and effectively throughout the body without going through the digestive process.

Summary

As you can see, plenty of vitamins, minerals, and hormonal supplements can help you fall asleep and enhance your sleep quality. Because sleep is crucial for your mental, physical, and emotional health, you should consider one or more of these vitamins and minerals if you’re experiencing sleep problems. While supplements are a good option, vitamin IV therapy is better. You should speak to a doctor before starting a new supplement, and you should only seek vitamin IV therapy from a licensed healthcare professional. A reliable doctor will conduct a health screening to make sure supplementation is the right choice for you.

• The Health Benefits of IV Drip Treatments
• What is IV Therapy? Science and Methodology Behind Drip Treatments
• Ingredients List: What’s in our IV Drip Treatments?
• What Is Myers Cocktail IV Therapy And Who Needs It Most?